Toyota Plans New Truck Distribution Center

A new distribution center for Toyota trucks will soon be a part of its recently opened Columbus industrial forklift truck manufacturing plant.

Yasuhisa Koga, president of Toyota Industrial Equipment Manufacturing Inc., or TIEM, said the forklift operation that construction would begin soon on the 100,000 square-foot distribution center.

The distribution center will be built next to the manufacturing plant at Columbus for delivery of Toyota industrial trucks to its dealers throughout the central United States. Dealers currently receive their products from distribution centers in Baltimore and Compton.

Koga said that TIEM’s initial capital investment of $40 million in 1989 grew to $60 million this summer. The $20 million of additional capital investment is being used for tooling and related equipment for making two additional major components for Toyota forklift trucks--the “upright” or forklift mast and the rear-steer axle assembly.

The expanded manufacturing operations will increase employment from 110 to 180.

Toyota Industrial Equipment Manufacturing Inc. is a joint venture of Toyota Automatic Loom Works Ltd. and Toyota Motor Corp.