New & Noteworthy

A Bit of This and That

Highlighting recent news in our business of buying, renting, and selling new and used yard ramps, we bring you:

The Sale

Save up to $2,200.00 on all new standard mobile and stationary dock ramps from Bluff Manufacturing.

That includes $1,000.00 off the standard pricing and up to $1,200.00 credit on your freight delivery charges.

Act now: this promotion ends June 30, 2023.

To begin saving, click HERE.


Turnkey

We know that buying or renting is the first, essential step of putting your yard ramp into use. Getting it shipped and set up is the next step. This is the yard ramp two-step.

We Literally Do The Heavy Lifting

We gauged our customers' needs for turnkey services, and we put together a network of professionals around the country. Now you can have your rental or purchase delivered, off-loaded, welded, bolted, and positioned.

We're literally orchestrating the heavy lifting of the yard ramp so that you can focus on the heavy lifting of your inventory, your production, your sales, and your service.

About half of our customers take advantage of turnkey options, including:

  • installing anchors at docks
  • spot welding
  • managing equipment like cranes needed to offload a ramp from a flatbed

Our competition hasn't expressed much interest in providing these options. We didn't invent the wheel with our turnkey services; we just greased that wheel a bit, and the results continue to show a smooth, expedited, and safe way to put your ramp into use.

To learn more about our Turnkey Services, click HERE.


Testimonials

Recent comments from our customers:

"Contacting The Yard Ramp Guy saved the day for the United States Postal Service at a tight time frame: Holiday Season. The whole procedure and communication were awesome. The gentleman I first contacted was able to expedite the request, and the rental fees were just the right price. Pam was great with communicating the delivery & pick up. If we are in need of a portable ramp for next year, we will definitely use The Yard Ramp Guy again. This was a 5-Star experience!!!!" — Brenda C., Gov: Fed/State/Local, Los Angeles, CA 

 

"We recently purchased a yard ramp from you guys and it was overall an excellent experience. Coming from the sales world, I can honestly say that your team was a pleasure to work with and we will definitely keep you guys in mind for our first stop on any future yard ramp needs!" — Cory M., Construction, North Kansas City, MO

Read more testimonials HERE.


Financing Options

Want to retain more cash on hand? Our partner options create a path toward financing your equipment. All can readily evaluate your request, and all involve simple applications.

To Finance: Not So Puzzling

Advantages:

  • Immediate use of a mobile yard ramp or stationary dock ramp
  • More flexibility than a standard bank loan.
  • Better ability to amortize the the cost of a yard ramp over time.

That's more of your cash in house. As an added advantage, with or without the financing option, your can take advantage of The Section 179 deduction, a tax perk that allows full deduction of your new (or used) yard ramp as a business expense.

Learn more about financing HERE.

This week, our man McCoy Fields weaves together Gravity, Whipple Shielding, and Pizza. And it all has to do with space debris. And it all makes perfect sense.

Click HERE to be dazzled.

Supply Chain Innovation

The Grizzled Warrior

Material Handling Industry (MHI) recently released its annual industry report for 2023.

Titled "The Responsible Supply Chain: Transparency, Sustainability, and the Case for Business," the report gives us a window to present The Yard Ramp Guy to you as a case for our business helping your business.

From the report's Technology Innovation section:

"This year’s survey, which received over 2,000 responses from supply chain leaders around the world, continued to highlight 11 key technology innovations that are reshaping the global supply chain industry:

Boosting Productivity

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Blockchain
  • Cloud Computing & Storage
  • Driverless Vehicles & Drones
  • Internet of Things
  • Inventory & Network Optimization
  • Predictive Analytics
  • Robotics & Automation
  • Sensors & Automatic Identification
  • Wearable & Mobile Technology
  • 3D Printing

Inventory & Network Optimization is where we've come in, time and again since 2011, to assist with that streamlining of a responsible supply chain. 

The yard ramp weighs a ton (or three). You need a forklift and operator to move it around. Yet, the yard ramp is a tireless workhorse that rarely complains. It's an established innovation that helps you move your innovations and products, with provisions for safety and efficiency. 

The yard ramp is mostly steel. The only technology involved with the ramp itself might have involved the techniques used to forge the steel and the systems employed (by, say, freight companies and GPS tracking systems) to get your ramp delivered. After that, it's all steel and maybe some rubber wheels.

The pandemic gave people and industries pause. From all the glitches in supply chains as a result of those events, the MHI report paints a portrait that has our businesses focusing on supply chain technology and innovation.

Yard ramp designs and construction have evolved over time, and no doubt they'll evolve again.

Still . . .steel.

In our listings, we describe our inventory that we've classified "Good" as showing its age and use as a grizzled warrior. Regardless of condition, that's how a yard ramp tends to perform, especially when surrounded by all the technology. 

Check our listings. Then use your technology to contact us about helping boost your productivity with a ton (or three) of steel.

On Efficiency

The Bottom Line Stuff

Safety in Mind (and Body)

One of the comments we hear all-too often from our potential customers: “If we had a ramp for a month or more, it would make all the difference.”

In our business, as it is with the industries that buy and rent our yard ramps, it's almost always about efficiencies.

When you're offloading your product, whether it's palletized or not, a crew of 2-4 employees typically needs a couple of hours to take inventory off a truck, or pull it to the end of the truck for a forklift to drive it away.

That's just a lot of labor. And the truck driver has to sit there, waiting. Time is money.

On the other hand: with a ramp, it's one worker with a forklift, unloading in 20-25 minutes.

Fold the safety factor into that. If you have 2-4 employees using muscle to move hundreds upon hundreds of pound of inventory manually, you run a higher risk of injury, followed by workers' comp claims. According to Safopedia, the top three workplace injuries are:

  1. Slips, trips, and falls
  2. Injuries from lifting, pushing, pulling, or reaching
  3. Material handling and forklift accidents

These accidents translate into 15% of all accidental deaths, 25% of all injury claims, and 95 million lost work days every year

Again, Safopedia: Fines from OSHA can be costly for businesses. Serious and other-than-serious infractions come in at $12,600, while willful or repeat violations will cost you $126,000. The human safety issue informs the financial cost to your company.

Then there's the opportunity cost. What could your employees be doing with their time instead of loading and offloading trucks?

All of this reflects the 5 Ps: Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.

Or, as Jerry Smith said, “Don't learn safety by accident.”

This week, our man McCoy Fields takes on American history and gets it wrong, then gets it right.

Click HERE to read his fascinating and entertaining course correction.

Manufacturing Outlook

What It Takes

Window (and Loading Bay) of Opportunity

In broad strokes, the manufacturing industry is informed by three connected activities:

First is the extraction of raw materials.

Second is the manufacturing process of these materials.

Third is the transport, distribution, and sale of materials.

All work in tandem to drive economies, get us to where we need to go, employ us, shelter us, put food on our table, and fill our spaces with essentials and luxuries.

The accounting firm Deloitte has produced a 2023 Manufacturing industry outlook that's filled with some keen insights on the state of the industry and five key trends to watch.

  1. Investing in advanced technologies to help mitigate risk.
  2. Implementing a broad range of talent management strategies to reduce voluntary exits.
  3. Relying on time-tested mitigation strategies with enhanced tactics to achieve supply assurance.
  4. Taking a holistic approach to smart factor initiatives to unlock new horizons.
  5. Focusing on corporate social responsibility.

Collectively, action on these five elements makes for a solid, strategic plan for growth. And it's a plan that both realizes and anticipates glitches. Deloitte's introduction makes that clear:

Accelerating growth amid anticipated challenges
"Despite supply headwinds, labor shortages, and an uncertain economic environment, the manufacturing industry continues to surpass the expectations of previous years. To maintain this growth, leaders should leverage digital technologies, adopt strategies for the future of work, and drive supply chain resiliency. Our 2023 outlook explores five manufacturing industry trends that can help organizations turn risks into advantages and capture growth."

Why put an accounting firm's economic outlook in a space focused on industrial yard ramps?

The Yard Ramp Guy continues to sell and rent our inventory to every sector described, including extraction (including agribusiness), manufacturing, and distribution, with our ramps placed across the gamut of U.S. industries.

We're proud that our mobile yard ramps and stationary loading dock ramps serve quietly ⏤ without fuss and with minimal maintenance requirements.

This week, our man McCoy Fields gives us a concrete example of...well, concrete.

Click HERE to read about Roman ingenuity.

The Forklift Factor

Forklift News

Uplifting News

"When you see a fork in the road, take it."
⏤ Yogi Berra

Forklifts and yard ramps are the perfect pairing of mobility and incline to help a business streamline its operation. The efficiency of this combination has been an essential component in warehousing scenarios for decades.

Along with our recent entries on the power and benefit of the forklift, we dug a bit deeper and discovered a world populated by fascinating forklift stories. If it's not enough for a new superhero joining the cinematic universe (Captain Forklift, anyone?), it's certainly worth a pitch as a limited miniseries on Hulu.

We start with how not to operate a forklift.

The OWI
On May 9th of this year, law enforcement in Rock County, WI, was called to investigate a stalled vehicle. Deputies found a truck stuck in a ditch. As detailed in the police report,

"Additionally, a male subject who appeared asleep was on a fork-lift in the immediate vicinity. The male operator was awoken and it was determined he had been operating the truck just prior. The male had utilized the fork-lift in attempt to free the truck from the ditch.

"The male operator was identified as Vernon R. Schmuck (Jr.), 62, of Clinton, WI. Schmuck displayed signs of impairment. Following investigation Schmuck was arrested for Operating While Intoxicated. A WI DOT records check of Schmuck showed four prior OWI convictions, making this Schmuck’s 5th Offense, which is a Felony."

You can read the Sheriff's Office media release HERE.


The Greening of the Forklift
Helping in its goal of eliminating all greenhouse gas emissions by 2040, Walmart has recently inked a deal with Plug Power Inc. to purchased green hydrogen for its fleet of forklifts. The deal includes up to 20 tons of liquid green hydrogen to power Walmarts material handling lift trucks in its distribution and fulfillment centers throughout the United States.

Walmart and Plug Power initiated a pilot program in 2012 for 50 vehicles, then expanded to 9,500. From the press release: "Now, the retailer is continuing to decarbonize its operations by striving to incorporate the use of green hydrogen throughout its facilities, in an effort to pursue lift truck operations that are efficient, clean, quiet and most importantly, more sustainable.


Big Business
Market researcher IMARC reports some seriously impressive numbers for the forklift market:

"The global forklift trucks market reached a value of US$ 58.5 Billion in 2021. Looking forward, IMARC Group expects the market to reach US$ 82.9 Billion by 2027."

The report spotlights growth in the construction industry and rapid industrialization as key factors contributing to the projected jump in market value.

This week, our man McCoy Fields shows us how helium isn't only for birthday parties, though he really seems to like birthday parties.

Click HERE to be uplifted.