Built To Last: 30+ Years Inside CLARK Engineering

Some careers don’t just span decades—they shape industries.

Mark Dyster has spent more than 30 years inside the forklift world, bringing a rare, firsthand perspective on how material handling has evolved—and what it takes to build equipment that performs in the real world.

In this episode of Between The Forks, he shares how he got his start in engineering, what’s changed across the industry since the late 1980s, and why the fundamentals of great equipment design—durability, maintainability, and real-world performance—remain constant. The conversation explores the evolution of electrification, the impact of lithium battery technology, and how advancements in adjacent industries like automotive are influencing the future of forklifts.

The discussion also covers CLARK’s engineering philosophy, including how product support and field experience directly influence new product development, why integrated systems matter, and how thoughtful design can reduce downtime and total cost of ownership. Mark also shares perspective on automation, workforce challenges, and the growing role of safety standards and global collaboration in modern equipment design.

Whether you’re in material handling, manufacturing, or simply interested in how industrial products are built and improved over time, this episode offers a practical, experience-driven look at what it takes to design equipment that’s truly built to last.

Subscribe to Between the Forks for more episodes.

For more information about CLARK Material Handling Company, visit:
www.clarkmhc.com

Follow CLARK Material Handling Company on LinkedIn for updates, stories, and industry insights:
www.linkedin.com/company/clark-material-handling-company

 Podcast Directed and Produced by: www.hiredgunsagency.com 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:05

Welcome back to Between the Forks, the Clark Podcast, where we go inside the engineering, innovation, and industry trends shaping material handling. Today I'm joined by someone who has helped shape Clark products for more than three decades. Mark Deister, Director of Product Support and Engineering. Mark's been in the forklift industry since 1988. He joined Clark in 1990 and has had a front row seat to everything from electrification to automation to evolving safety standards. So I hope you're ready to lift your forklift knowledge. Let's get into it with Mark. Mark, how are you today?

SPEAKER_00 0:43

I'm doing great, Sean. Thanks for asking.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Well, I'm so glad that you're on Between the Forks. Know you're really busy. Got a lot of career milestones coming up, a lot of awesome things happening for you personally and professionally. And so congratulations on all your success. Like three decades plus in an industry makes you clearly an expert. So kudos to you. I want to start this conversation around your perspectives. Somebody that with the amount of experience that you have is going to have just an absolute treasure trove of insights and things that I think people who are around material handling will really draw to. And so the first thing I want to ask you is with you being in the forklift industry since 1988 and you joined Clark in 1990, what initially drew you to the industry in the first place? And what made you stay in it for three decades?

SPEAKER_00 1:37

That that's a long story, but hopefully I can uh cut that one short. Um I grew up in a big family, 10 kids. I had five brothers, all of which were older than me. Uh they like to work on their own cars. Uh so they're out in the backyard fixing cars, hot rotting them, souping them up, all that kind of stuff. I used to love to sit out there with my brothers and just hand them tools or help however possible. Um so I got a really good appreciation for you know mechanical stuff. Uh then in high school I was pretty good at math and science, and my uh guidance counselor said, you would make a great engineer, so you need to go into engineering. Um ended up going to school at uh State University of New York in Binghamton, which is one of the uh state-run schools there. Uh my first co-op was at a forklift company just north of there in uh Green, New York. Uh when I started there, I was a design engineer working on like current products and stuff like that, and also got a taste of some of the new product design. I really had a blast working on mobile equipment. I just uh really enjoyed it, and I've been in it ever since. And I I remember years ago there was an older forklift engineer that said, get the hell out of the industry as fast as you can. I said, Well, why? He says, Because you're gonna fall in love with it and then you'll never do anything else, and he was right.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

So that's a fantastic story, and I think that it uh mirrors to how some other people end up in industries, and then you end up developing a passion for something, especially when you uh started it at such an early point. It gives you such an opportunity to understand it, and it sounds like your family background, being with brothers, wrenching on cars. I have older brothers that remember the same thing. I didn't end up in engineering, but I certainly can relate to that, and I'm sure a lot of people in the audience can as well. When you compare the forklift industry from then, when you started, to what it's like today, what are some of the biggest shifts that you've seen in technology and customer expectations?

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Well, it's very interesting because when I uh first got into forklifts, like the very first forklift I worked on was an electric forklift. And uh, you know, in the last 10, 15 years, you see this big electrification of automobiles. And everyone says, wow, look at this. They're they're creating all these electric vehicles. And I was like, hey, we were doing that 50, 60, 70 years ago in the forklift world. And the funny thing is, the the car companies, most of them run electric forklifts in their facilities because they understand that they're more efficient, less moving parts, you can easier to maintain, less downtime and all that. So when that whole electrification of the car came along, I wasn't surprised by it because I've been living that life for many, many years. Um the the automotive sector is actually now starting to drive some change in the forklift world. They've they've done wonders with battery technologies that have now started creeping into the the forklift world. And I'm certain you'll we'll get into lithium, but uh Clark recently launched a full line of lithium-powered forklifts with our fusion battery line. Um, and we've got more on the way.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

Yeah. It's interesting to see how industries that are somewhat adjacent, not directly, but close, automotive, forklifts, you know, things with wheels and motors, power sports, marine, RV. Uh, I've been in the automotive industry for a long time, about the same, like almost 30 years, and watching it evolve. It's interesting because you're the first person that I've heard say that automotive on the electrification side of their industry has been able to advance some things that's now also helpful to an industry where you just said that the first forklift that you worked on 50 plus years ago was electric. And I I love hearing stories about that of the synergies about how industries, without oftentimes knowing it, are inspiring and uh helping uh one another in ways that move us all forward, and I think that's pretty interesting. So um I appreciate you telling sharing that story. Now, you've had several uh roles across engineering and product support, probably many others. How has working closely with the equipment in the field influenced how you think about product design? And that could be today or how it's always uh influenced your product design.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Yeah, good point. Um most of the engineers I know work on their own cars, they do their own car mechanics. Um one of the great things about that is it gives you a real appreciation for how to maintain a vehicle, how to design a vehicle that a mechanic can work on, uh, that's hugely important. Uh you you quickly learn the difference between a good design and a bad design when you're exposed to that. Um that gives you the knowledge so that when you become a new product designer, you can do better designs, make them easier to maintain, make them more reliable. Uh the one thing Clark has done for many years is focus on uh maintainability and making it easy to work on. Uh we we pair up our service department with our um engineers to work in the early stages of the development uh to uh make the vehicles easier to maintain in the future. So that's one thing being on the product support side and the engineering side, combining those two and getting those two uh teams to work together.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

Yeah. Is there thought on the front end that is around like what's it gonna cost somebody to own one of these or a fleet of these? Is there a is there like a cost of ownership consideration that kind of happens in that process too?

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Very much so. We're constantly looking at what it takes to maintain a vehicle and looking for ways to reduce that. Uh we now have much longer extended oil drain intervals than we did years ago. Um we do things like cooling our oil to make it last longer, things that some other companies don't do. Uh but yes, we're very focused on what what is a PM, which is a planned maintenance interval. How often does it occur, and what does the mechanic have to do when he's doing it?

SPEAKER_02 8:49

Yeah, those obviously are really big considerations when it's a CFO or whoever is holding the wallet is making decisions about such a huge investment that you've got a company and engineers who are thinking about those things in the advance of actually building them. Um I'm always interested in that. I know the audience likes to hear things like that because the competition in the case of Clark, there's a whole lot of things that they do not do, never have, and never will do that Clark does that really makes Clark quite quite different and standalone. Well, the next thing I want to ask you a little bit is around your engineering philosophy, a little bit of product development. Today you oversee both new product development and current product support. How do those two areas of responsibility influence each other when it comes to just building better equipment?

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Sure. Well, most new designs are not really revolutionary, they're more evolutionary. Uh, they build on what came before them. Uh they try and make it better in some way. Uh before you can be very good at designing the next new uh forklift, you really have to understand how the current product works. So uh one of the things we do at Clark is we always start the uh new engineers in the current engineering department so they get exposure to um what what they're seeing in the field, what customers like, what they don't like. It gives them time to absorb that knowledge so that one day when they transfer into a new product development, uh they come armed with that wealth of knowledge. They quickly learn things like, you know, downtime is a customer pain point, and they find ways to avoid that with good design and proper validation to ensure they never have issues in the field.

SPEAKER_02 10:44

That makes sense. Well, you also represent uh the US on Clark's global product development and planning teams. How does the global collaboration shape equipment customers ultimately end up using in the field?

SPEAKER_00 11:01

Yeah, that's that's been one of my funnest things about working at Clark being an international company is being exposed to different cultures and stuff like that. Uh we we work very closely and collaborate with our colleagues in Australia, Germany, Korea, Vietnam. Um, and together, what that does, you see multiple different perspectives when you work with the different engineers across the world. And you're able to pull the best of those together and incorporate it into the final project product, excuse me. Um one of the things Clark does is we sell a lot of vehicles in in both the US and Europe. They have different safety regulations, but that just means we've got to design for both of them. So we design to the more stringent requirement in each region. So even when we sell a vehicle in the US, it may include some additional requirements that uh come out of the that those stringent, more stringent requirements from Europe.

SPEAKER_02 12:06

That's uh actually kind of an advantageous scenario where you've got to be able to be not just aware of, but build to the spec of those particular countries' safety standards. And when one is perhaps a little uh bit more elevated than the other, and you're designing to the you know top tier no matter where, um, it's like letting both of them rise to the higher standard. Um that's correct. Yes. Yeah, that's that's that's really a smart way to to be engineering and thinking about product, but it's almost like a built-in um, you know, assistance. Um I love that. I want to ask you a little bit about your thoughts on kind of the the future industry direction. Clark has you you mentioned this at the top of the conversation that there's even more um electric units, new product on the way. Um so there's a number of exciting new projects and products coming out faster than ever before. Um, I say this to some of your team members all the time that I love that Clark is this legacy brand that's been around for a long time, like the inventor of the forklift, and it feels like it doesn't feel like it anymore. Clark is now like uh clawing back its uh territory, its brand, its uh market share. Um, and I I love that you guys are making content like this to help the audience understand, well, why is that? Like, what is the recipe of what's been behind Clark all of the of these years and telling the stories? And so when you think about new projects, new products that are coming out, uh, what is exciting you about like where the company is heading now?

SPEAKER_00 13:55

Yeah, Clark has always been an innovator in in the areas of uh both productivity and safety, um, and that's no different than today. Um the whole electrification uh going on, we're we're knee deep in the middle of all that and coming out with new models. Um probably some changes I've seen in the industry, uh, great improvements in overall efficiency of the vehicles, especially the internal combustion ones that run on LPG gas or diesel. Um along with that, we've seen a great reduction in greenhouse gases, so we're able to uh have efficient running machines that don't pollute. Uh larger forklifts historically have been like diesel or LPG. We're now starting to produce more um electric-powered units. So uh once again, taking on the uh improved efficiency, overall efficiency, lower maintenance, and lower emissions of those units. Uh, lithium batteries have come a long way. They allow us now to be able to recharge a truck in less than two hours. Uh they accept opportunity charging, so they don't mind if you throw them on the charger for 15 minutes, you know, here and there when you have the opportunity to charge. Uh in the old days you had to worry about the memory effects of batteries, not so with lithium, they actually prefer short little charging sessions. So if you can get in just uh charge if you can charge on brakes, lunchtime between shifts at the end of the shift, um, you can bring the battery back up to full charge. And what that allows you to do is just leave that battery in the truck and uh you don't have to swap out the batteries, which saves time, uh safer. Uh so that's that's a great thing for the industry. And Clark just launched several new models, uh, which are either exclusively lithium or avail available with lithium from the factory.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

Yeah, that's exciting. I was not planning to ask you this question, but I just thought of it because, well, you're an engineer. Does the fact that batteries are heavier, this is certainly a factor in automob the automobile industry. Is there a factor in the engineering process based on the weight of battery uh powered trucks, electric powered trucks, that goes into how the other weight distribution works in terms of the ability to lift and counterbalance and all of that? Is that yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

Yeah, so forklifts are pretty much counterbalance units except for a few models that have outriggers. So uh we need the weight to lift the load on the counterbalance versions. Uh so it doesn't it doesn't hurt us to have heavier batteries. We actually, if we if we don't put in a heavier battery, we just have to replace it with more counterweight. So when it came to lithium, that actually was an advantage to us, where the car companies are constantly trying to shed weight for fuel economy.

unknown 17:08

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:09

We didn't or in the case of electric vehicles for range, we didn't have to worry about that. That allowed us to select a technology called LFP, uh, which is just lithium phosphate, and it's one of the uh most stable chemistries out there. And because of that, it doesn't have some uh the inherent risk that um you see with some of the other uh battery technologies that are much more volatile than uh lithium phosphate chemistry. So that that was actually a huge advantage. You're actually seeing some of the car companies switching over to what we call lithium phosphate or LFP technology.

SPEAKER_02 17:49

Interesting. I thought that might be the case. And um I'm glad I asked about that. I think that's very interesting. Uh when you look at Clark's product roadmap, what development uh developments or new technologies are you personally most excited about to see it get to the market?

SPEAKER_00 18:08

Uh one of the things we've done with our lithium is we've got um what we call factory integrated lithium. That's where you buy the truck, the battery, and the charger from Clark, and we take it upon ourselves to make certain they all match up and work together. Um the huge advantages of that is that the battery is communicating with the truck. So you get very accurate battery state of charge uh information. If should an alarm occur in the battery that gets communicated to the dash on the truck and you get to see that, uh if the battery is running low, we can actually send a signal from the battery to the truck to slow it down. And then also if an operator is like ignoring the low state of charge, uh we can actually put that truck into a limp mode to force them into taking it back to the charger. So very very good things happen when you integrate that lithium into the truck and make it a seamless part of the vehicle. Um as we said earlier, you know, electrification is real and and it's happening and it's now. It's not uh something of the future. Uh something we've been working on for many years. Um the the big shift there, you know, we've had electric trucks in the six to seven thousand pound range, some even up as high as ten thousand. We've had those for years. But what you're seeing now in the world of electrification is bigger electric trucks coming out. So now things that normally only ran on LPG or diesel are now coming out with uh electric powertrains. And Clark's released several of those and we're actively working on more. So you'll see a lot of that. Uh, one of the other big changes we're seeing in the is in the world of automation. Um most people know it. The birth rate across the world is dropping, it's slowing. So companies are having a tough time finding workers. Um it just means it's the lower birth rate just means it's gonna get tougher over time, not easier to find those workers. Also, for some reason, most kids uh today are looking for jobs in an office setting. Um, they want to work on a computer, they love their handheld devices. Um, they don't always want to go into the world of forklifts. So it's hard, it's becoming harder to find people that want to drive forklifts for a living. Although I think they should get into that if they've ever experienced, you know, man and machine like together. Uh it's a wonderful thing to drive a forklift. I I love doing it. Um automation is just a way for us to fill the gap of the shrinking work uh force that we have. It could also do some of the more mundane test tasks that uh a lot of people really don't want to do. So that you know, couple those together, hopefully it'll fill the void of um some of the tasks that operators don't want to do and and keep our industry going. And this isn't the first time we've seen this in industry. Um, 200 years ago, most people plowed their own plow of land. And nowadays you've got farmers that have uh used automation in the way of tractors and stuff like that to uh be able to farm big farms. Uh could you imagine if everyone had to produce their own food, we'd we would have no spare time because we'd be spending all our time working uh just to keep things going. So automation done right, automation is a good thing. Uh we talked about like areas of efficiency improvement uh with the advent of AC motors, uh electric powertrains have gotten uh much more efficient. Also, that adds a drastic reduction in maintenance. So not just efficiency, but uh cost of ownership by lowering your overall maintenance uh requirements. Yeah. Uh even on the internal combustion side, the fuel systems have gotten more efficient than they were just a few years back. Um we've extended drain intervals to lengthen, um minimize the amount of times you have to maintain the truck. And then also we've just increased the overall performance of the trucks. Uh the throughput's much higher, so you can get a lot more done in the same amount of time. Uh, another big focus for the industry has been safety. Um many trucks today have systems that slow the truck down when it goes into a turn. Uh Clark's no different. Uh trucks like our um S20 series and SEC model series, uh, they're equipped with stability dampening systems that basically uh when you're in a turn, they they oppose the overturning moment and help in a turn. Uh technologies like that that have really improved the safety of the trucks. And then one thing Clark did several years ago, we made the orange seatbelt standard. Sounds like a just a simple thing. It added a little cost to the truck, uh, but we thought it was important. When you walk out into your warehouse, you can see which drivers are wearing their seatbelts and which ones are not. And that that helps companies enforce the uh you know wear your seatbelt seatbelt rules. And um, you know, wearing your seatbelt is still the best way for a driver to protect themselves uh while driving any sort of sit-down uh rider product. So those are the big changes we've seen.

SPEAKER_02 23:52

Those are great, and you shared a lot of great information there. Um I couldn't agree more with you that I think that uh young people need to get their hands in the trades and forklifts, material handling, all of that. I have shared with some of your colleagues when I first started uh conversations with them uh last year that the first forklift that I ever operated was in an automotive parts warehouse. It was a Clark forklift, and I was 18 years old. And um I spent 10 years with a company that was an automotive parts company that had warehouses all across the country, and they weren't exclusive to Clark, they had a couple of other brands, but they had a lot of Clarks, and the first one I ever, I said my first memory of forklifts was Clark as an 18-year-old. And I'm not on forklifts really these days, but in the early years of my life, what I was doing in the car business, um, I got an opportunity to be on all of them. And just listening to you and having this conversation today, the contrast between the safety standards, these were uh propane-powered uh trucks that I was on as a young, a young man. Um there's just so much difference. So there was no orange seatbelt requirement. There were like all of these things that have modernized but also brought better safety standards. You just ran through a list of the electrification of where we are today from when you know the industry first started down that channel, the automation that exists, uh, the efficiency improvements. It's a long list of things all tied to this very, very uh important, valuable legacy brand within forklifts being Clark. Uh, it's just great to hear somebody with your experience walk through some of this in like chapter and verse. It's really, really valuable to hear.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

It's interesting. You said something that sparked my memory. I was talking to one of our German colleagues, and uh he said that at the end of World War II, the U.S. pulled out um but left a lot of machinery around Europe, including forklifts, and and a lot of those forklifts were Clarks. So when they had to go rebuild Europe, they used a lot of uh Clark forklifts to do that. And they used to call forklifts Clarkys. They'd point at a forklift and say, go get the Clarkey. A Clarkey. Interesting story, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:29

Yeah, that sure is. Um interesting that uh people don't always understand even some of those deeper points of history around brands. And uh, you know, being a guy that's been on the creative and marketing side of business now for a long time, I love stories like what you just shared there. I think that's really important because it is a part of the fabric of who Clark is and the mark they've made, not just in the people's lives that work for them and the people that buy their products and how it helps their businesses, but something that's literally like um nation building or rebuilding. Uh it's pretty interesting. So one thing I wanted to ask you about um uh electrification within the industry is uh, you know, this has been a big shift now for several years, not just in material handling. We we've talked about it a little bit, also in automotive, and it continues to be. And that right now, as we record this conversation, uh I think there's also another resurgence in interest of, well, maybe I should look at an electric vehicle uh with the soaring cost of gasoline and who knows how long that might persist. But what I wanted to ask is what other like opportunities and challenges does this transition with electrification forklift, what does that kind of present? Are there are there are there things that maybe a regular business wouldn't be thinking of or the industry wouldn't be thinking of that are that are challenging? Automotive has certainly had its own, but what's that look like in material handling?

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Yes, uh we spent a lot of time talking about lithium. You know, lithium done right is a great technology, saves the end user costs, eliminates maintenance costs, like you have with uh light acid batteries. Done wrong, it can lead to downtime and service calls. Um Clark offers it full line of integrated batteries where we've done all the development work. We pair them up, we make certain they work together. Um and so then that takes the head headache out of it for the customer or the dealer. So if you go at it alone and just go grab your own lithium battery and your own truck and try and get them to work together, that's not always the case. You can run into some stumbles and have some headaches. Uh, we even work with our charger manufacturers to make certain they work with our batteries. Um the the not only does the truck and battery communicate with each other, but the battery and charger communicate with each other so that the charger can tell the battery what it needs. And it dict it dictates the um charging rate and the finishing rate and all that good stuff to make certain it doesn't uh overcharge the battery. So pairing those all up, those systems and and buying the package really makes it all work really well and you don't run into the issues that you do if you don't do it that way.

SPEAKER_02 29:29

I want to ask you a little bit about uh the renegade. So Clark recently introduced the Renegade, and from a technical standpoint, um how is the market receiving it? I know it's still fresh, so maybe that's still a pretty new perspective, but um how is the market receiving it? How do you think overall it will, what advantages does the renegade um offer compared to these traditional, more uh the internal combustion trucks?

SPEAKER_00 30:00

Yeah, it's interesting you say that. Um I I saw an email from one of our uh German uh dealers. He said uh the Renegade is the best truck he's ever seen. And um when we had the the prototypes here, we would spend a lot of time tuning them to make certain uh the operator interface worked well, that's acceleration, deacceleration, all that kind of stuff. Uh we spend a lot of time fine-tuning it so that when a driver hops on the truck, uh it just feels natural. You know, they hop onto it, they start driving it, and uh feels like it's a part of their body. Um in the 38 years I've been working in this industry, I got the biggest smile on my face when I hopped on a renegade and started driving it. When you think about like what you're looking for for the perfect forklift, you want that tough, rugged internal combustion frame and everything else that goes with that. But then you got the quiet operation and the efficiency and the clean burning of an electric truck, and they married those two things together into the renegade. So I I truly feel that um when uh if we can get that truck out into the hands of customers and drivers can put themselves in the seat and start driving it, they're gonna love that truck. Matter of fact, they're not gonna go want they're not gonna want to go back to driving whatever they they got off of when they hopped on the renegade.

SPEAKER_02 31:35

That's one of those, huh?

SPEAKER_00 31:37

Yeah. It'll sell itself for sure.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

Well, that's it's exciting. I've only seen, I haven't, and I don't know that I'll ever get to drive one, but the just the appearance, and you I don't know if people in the you would know this far better than I would, but just the appearance of forklift, like that's a really good-looking forklift. The renegade is a such a stunning in a great way in all facets of the aesthetics of a forklift, it just looks great, it looks strong, it looks very durable. It I mean, just everything about its appearance is so impressive. And then for you to say, well, we have you know like this big dealer in Germany says the best forklift ever made, um, you know, from the lips and uh of of users, if that's the feedback you're getting, uh I think that this is probably a uh home run all the way around.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

I think so.

SPEAKER_02 32:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:40

Yeah. And and you talk about the styling, you know, when we first started the project, we focused a lot on the styling. Um we intentionally wanted the truck to look like an internal combustion truck, not an electric truck. Because it's going into internal combustion applications. Yeah. And there's something about it when when a user of forklifts or a purchaser walks up to the vehicle, they they see like, oh, that's an electric truck, or that's an internal combustion. They kind of know, hey, that's an indoor truck, don't take it outside, that's an outdoor truck, we're good to go outside. And uh the Renegade is an indoor-outdoor truck, so we wanted it to project that image of being able to work in both environments.

SPEAKER_02 33:25

Love that. That's a little uh backstage extra story right there. Uh thanks for that, Mark. Well, it's been about 10 years since the launch of the S series. Um what makes the S2 in particular such a really strong value for customers today?

SPEAKER_00 33:47

Yeah, the uh when we started with the S series, it was a uh clean sheet design. And what I mean by that is we're we're gonna build it from the ground up. Everything, we're gonna look at everything, whatever needs to change is gonna change. And we we started by focusing on the operator's compartment. Aerogonomics was very important to us. We said, let's build the perfect operator's compartment and then let's build the rest of the truck around that. Um we challenged things like common thinking, like in the industry, is like the lower the step height, the better, the lower the step height, the better. And we said, well, why is that? Because uh what what we learned in in our investigation was the perfect step height is always better than a lower step height. So we really made it so that when the operator climbs into the truck, it's just a seamless motion of stepping in and going to the seat. Same thing true when they exit. When they get out, it's seamless of stepping out of the truck onto the ground. Um so that really drove the whole design around the uh operator's compartment. Um, we we basically had to change every component that the operator touched. We had to look at everything of how they interacted when they got into the truck, once they're in the truck, when they reach for things, knobs, um, control levers, things like that, that was all redone. And and by the way, what we've learned on that truck, you you know, you said they came out ten years ago, but any vehicles that followed after that, we learned we took the knowledge we learned from that development and we applied it to all future designs.

SPEAKER_02 35:35

So there's a lot of things that go into an S2 being really valuable because of you know the standard options like you're mentioning are already in consideration, but mass design is at a factor as well.

SPEAKER_00 35:50

Yeah, there's boy, there's so much I can go into on that truck. Um the braking system, the S20 braking system, we use force-cooled wet disc brakes. What that means is that the oil that we run across the brakes is is goes through a cooling system. Uh the reason we do that is it prolongs the fluid life, which in turn prolongs the disc life, and that the brake discs are what's actually stopped the truck. So uh I don't want to use the word lifetime brakes, but it's um it's not uncommon for the brakes to last the life of the truck on on certain applications. Yeah, provided they change their oil and keep everything uh going. Uh, we also uh added an automatic uh parking brake to that unit. So if the operator gets out of the seat, the brake automatically applies. They don't have to remember to do that anymore. Uh you touched on some standard features. Uh it's it's loaded with features. Uh, the interactive dash display is one of them. Uh that allows mechanics to go into the truck and look at the status on things, uh, make adjustments, look up any like alarms or error codes that might be in the system, uh, and do basic troubleshooting right from the dash of the truck. They don't have to have a computer to do that. Uh the S series was the first truck that we came out with that had the orange seat belt, as I said earlier. Uh, we made full suspension seats standard starting with that model, and we've really carried that over on all future models. That just gives a uh a dampening system for the operator. Uh so when they go over bumps, there's kind of a float or a suspended seat versus a non-suspended seat. Uh that truck has a dampening block system for stability. It's a uh mechanical system that uh reduces the likelihood of overturning in a in a turn. Uh it does not require any maintenance like some competitor systems. Uh, another feature we did is uh built-in speed limiting. So if uh operation doesn't want the truck to go as fast as it is, they can dial it back. That's built right into the system. They don't have to go buy additional equipment. Uh, you mentioned our our mast. Uh we're very proud of our mast. We use a nested I-beam design. Uh it's the type of rail sections we use, are I-shaped. Um, the reason we do that is it minimizes twisting and gives the driver lots of confidence when they're uh operating with a load up high. Uh, we also do our our uprights have uh negative drop rail systems that allows them to lower the rails, jack the truck up and lower the rails down to replace the rollers. They don't have to take the upright off the truck to do that, like some of our competitors' trucks. Um that truck comes standard with a six-roller carriage. Uh the reason we use six rollers, our competition uses four. We go with six because we space that load out over more rollers. Uh gives us a big advantage there. Uh the truck is one of the most durable trucks on the market. Um, we pride ourselves on the components we put in there, like the drive axle, the steer axle. Uh we spend countless hour hours endurance testing those components before they go into the product. Then we field test them to get more time on them. Uh those those the axles in that truck have millions of actual um hours in operation and have just continued to prove out their durability.

SPEAKER_02 39:49

Yeah, that's it's extremely valuable product. I mean, just loaded with uh features from you mentioned the braking system. There's so much thoughtful engineering into uh details that it seems that every single person with a vested interest in the value of a truck, there's something for everyone to care about. Whether they're I just want to care about safety features or the operator comfort. You mentioned the uh the seat that has a suspension to it, right? There's so many things that uh you can look at to find points of value that I think that when you're making decisions on you know what you want to bring into your operations in terms of product, um Clark is loaded with these. Um I want to ask you a couple more questions before I let you go, and I've really appreciated your time here. Um again, on a little bit on the S series here. Clark has been really is known for building trucks with tough components. That's actually one of the things that I would a word I would use to describe when I first saw a renegade. It looks tough. I mean, it looks really tough. But you have that reputation, you're known for building trucks with tough components. What does that really mean from an engineering standpoint, at least from your perspective? And why why do you think or why would you want customers to care about that that aspect, that tough component aspect of Clark?

SPEAKER_00 41:21

Yeah, our model is built to last. Um, the way we achieve that, um, many years ago, Clark created its own set of endurance tests. These are ways to, these are tests where we go test major components like drive axles, transmissions, steer axles, uprights, uh, you name it. Uh, but uh we run every product through these tests and basically beat the hell out of them to make certain that when we put them in the field, they're gonna work for for many years to come. Um, some of the tests they run over a million cycles, and we're not applying like a rated load. We're we're applying like 140 to 150 percent of rated load for a million cycles. So we want to know that uh even if it's used in the toughest applications, it's gonna endure and last forever. Um every design must pass these grueling tests before it it gets labeled a Clark. We won't send it out the door unless we pass those. Um, and also our engineers have the mindset to select materials based on how durable they are, not on how cheap they are. Um we understand that a forklift is a long-term investment for that customer. They're gonna have it for many years. And like I said, our motto is built to last, and we live by that motto every day.

SPEAKER_01 42:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 42:49

Uh it's it's evident for sure. As a person who gets to host the Between the Forks podcast um and has been on a forklift or two in my warehousing days, it's been uh personally uh a lot of I I want to say it's kind of fun because it gives me an element of joy to hear from people like you that are experts and have been doing this for a long time, um, to hear your perspectives because what you share is really what the audience and the enthusiasts, but also the operators, the users, and the people who invest in these products want to hear. And so I want to ask you a couple things before we conclude. One is around standards and regulations. Industrial regulations play a big role in the things that you design in equipment design. Could you explain a little bit or talk a little bit about things like UL certification, uh fire protection standards, battery safety requirements, and how those things influence uh lift trucks? Um love it if you'd share a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00 43:59

Sure. Sure. The two big UL standards for forklifts are UL 583 and 558, one for electric trucks, one for internal combustion. They basically set the minimum requirements with respect to fire risk, electric shock, and explosion. When you buy equipment that's been qualified to those standards, you know it's been tested and certified to meet the rigorous safety standards that UL imposes. One thing Clark does, we always uh team up with UL to do our uh mule approvals. Um we do not self-approve on a lot of our products. We instead engage with UL. So that way you know you have that independent um verification and certification of our products. And the products that Clark sells in North America have been tested to the UL standards. That includes our factory integrated lithium that we've talked so much about today. So when you buy our lithium, you know it's gone through that uh rigorous testing.

SPEAKER_02 45:08

Now, technologies like lithium batteries is they're becoming much more common. How are the safety standards evolving? Why is it important for manufacturers like Clark to stay ahead on those requirements?

SPEAKER_00 45:21

Uh UL actually created a new standard, uh 2580. It's uh safety standards for batteries using electric trucks. It covers lithium batteries using forklifts and any other battery technology. Um and that that standard basically evaluates the lithium battery assemblies to ensure they're gonna be uh be safe. It runs through it basically does a lot of uh simulated abusive conditions. They actually drive uh large spikes through the side of the battery and all that, and just make certain that when things like that happen, that nothing bad happens. Um so all Clark batteries that we have in our trucks are uh the UL certified batteries. So that's one thing we do. Um and then kind of like within 583, which is the truck standard, when you you go and put a lithium battery in the truck, you have to retest that truck with that lithium battery. It may have already been approved for lead acid, but when you add lithium, you've got to retest it. And they're looking for ways to make certain the battery in the truck are going to interact together and not cause issues. Uh so all of our Clark trucks, uh especially the factory integrated, are uh approved to the Yel standard. Uh the other standard out there is National Fire Protection Agency known as uh NFPA. Uh they're currently working on a new standard called NFPA 800, and the purpose behind that is it's a battery safety code. Um they're creating this regulation. Uh when they when they create codes or regulations, they can't enforce them, but they create the codes so that other organizations like OSHA, insurance companies, um municipalities, they can pick up and create local codes and ordinances that are enforceable. So that creates like a guideline for for uh different organizations to create those regulations. Um I was able to they have like the the uh initial draft of it is out for review. I was looking at that the other day, and they are mandating that the batteries must be UL approved. So uh, and the trucks and the chargers. So they really want that combination if it's gonna be in warehouses to be UL approved. And like I said before, the the Clark offerings that you can buy today are all Yule approved, right from the factory.

SPEAKER_02 48:01

Interesting. I can't believe it, but we've got to the last question, and now after this one, we're gonna be able to sit this episode down, actually. And the last one is just a little bit of like as you think about the next chapter, the the future of material handling, specifically with Clark's role in it. What gets you excited or what makes you excited about what will the next chapter be in material handling and forklifts?

SPEAKER_00 48:33

I I think for uh the manual forklifts, just a continuous uh focus on safety, not only for the drivers, but for the pedestrians around them. Uh we continue to see innovations in that area. Um automation, I do think, is a because of the low birth rate, is something that is coming. I don't think it's coming as fast as some people may think or hope, but it is coming. And uh it's gonna be interesting to see how that plays out in the future. How who becomes successful at it, how they be become successful at it, and uh how that and then how that interacts with the manual forkless in the uh in the warehouse.

SPEAKER_02 49:18

I think that's gonna be very interesting to watch as well across multiple industries. It's a very it's a very interesting time in uh the evolution of technology, especially around automation and things that are AI related. Mark, I can't tell you how much I appreciate you sharing uh the history, your engineering mindset, where the industry is headed for everyone listening and or watching who wants to better understand the forces shaping material handling. This is exactly the kind of conversation that we like to bring you here on Between the Forks, the official Clark podcast. So, not only a big thanks to you, Mark, but thanks to everyone watching and or listening to Between the Forks. If you enjoyed the episode, especially if you're on YouTube watching some of this content, be sure to subscribe to this channel. That way you'll know when we put out new content because we're doing a lot more of that, more so than we've ever had before. So share it with your team. This is probably content if you're watching it, that there's someone else in your orbit that would probably love to get some of this information. And then tune in for the next conversation where we continue breaking down what really matters in material handling. Until next time, keep lifting.