A day with Joe, Technician at Central Forklift & Trucks

Did you know Central Forklift & Trucks (Central Group) does 24 hour / 7 days a week repair service and support for ALL forklift brands and issues you may have in your business.  There is also a comprehensive parts area for all your forklift and truck parts. Central Group has been operating in the Lower North Island for over 25 years. The business offers a one-stop-shop for all your forklift and truck requirements.  They distribute Heli Forklifts, Takeuchi Diggers and Wacker Neuson machines throughout NZ & Regional dealers for Jungheinrich, TCM forklifts & Hyundai & UD Trucks.  With offices in Wellington, Palmerston North, and the Hawkes Bay, and partner dealers throughout NZ, they offer a Nationwide service to its customers.  The Forklift & truck servicing is supported by a team of fully qualified Technicians that can work on a range of vehicles.

Joe Ross, Technician at Central Group

Some of the services offered by the CFG team are:

• Over 40 technicians servicing the lower North Island Region, which covers from Taranaki through to Gisborne and down through to the Wellington South Coast.
• The ability to service and repair a wide range of forklifts, access equipment, trucks and construction equipment.
• A skilled and qualified team, with
  • Certified technicians for inspections/certification on access equipment (Scissor lifts/boom lifts etc)
  • VTNZ certified technicians for Warrant of Fitness’ on forklifts.
• A selection of rental machines option to maintain customer operations while their machines are repaired.

Central Group have invested in knowledgeable team to get the job done.

The forklift service team do on average 800 - 1000 servicing and breakdown jobs each month, 12 breakdown callouts each day and has one of highest response times in the industry – they are known for their quick response to a call out.

To understand more about the service business and how it operates; Aaron, the Service Manager for Central Group at the Wellington Office sent me, newly arrived marketing consultant, to spend a day with one of their technicians (Joe Ross). 

Our jobs for the day were to complete certifications for two business Central Group works with – Juken New Zealand (JNL), in the Wairarapa and the Royal New Zealand Ballet (RNZB) in Upper Hutt.

Our 1^st job was to JNL; JNL is an impressive business involved in the NZ forestry and wood processing industry.  We met with Andrew Buchanan (Spider) to certify and test their JLG Boom Lift.  Safety is an important part of the JNL business, Central Forklifts have been working with JNL for several years.  All servicing and repairs of equipment are done on site by Aaron’s team. The machine we were certifying was an impressive beast… Weighing 10 tonnes and lifting to 18 meters.  I am sure Spider was only joking that the machine is used to change light bulbs at JNL – but I am not sure. 

All three of us have issues with heights - being 18 metres in the air in a moving machine – was not something any of us loved.

Speaking to Spider, he appreciates JNL’s long history with Central Group, the on site servicing, 24/7 service support and Central’s ability to certify JNL’s machines.

After all the testing the machine obtained its certification – job done!

Onto our 2^nd job, back over the Rimutaka Hill to meet with the Royal New Zealand Ballet.  It was another certification but for a Workforce Electric Mast which the RNZB use for their productions.  The machine travels with the ballet overseas and nationwide.  Like the machine at JNL, its unique and serves a specific purpose - this machine needs to be sturdy, manoeuvrable, and able to work on the sprung floors used in Ballet.  This was a follow up job, so was quickly done by my buddy Joe – there are a couple of follow ups for our team back at Central Group – job done #2!