Straight mast forklifts have emerged with the market for rough terrain forklifts. They have leveled off in the wake of the telescopic handler explosion of the past 10 years. At present, forklift manufactures are focusing their product development on the core function of the forklift.
Like for example, models which offer a lift capacity of less than 6000 pounds on average are up to 2.45% to a little over $46,000. Other equipment within the category's bulk class varying from 6000 pounds to 10,000 pounds in capacity are up 3.15% to $54,177. Buyers of machines will quickly point out only if their real expenses are up ever so slightly.
With models that rely on diesel fuel, hourly expenses in those 2 classes have risen 81.6% and 84.3% respectively. Even if the prices on the dealer's tag might not seem all that different, once the machinery has left the sales yard and enters the client's work space, it has to produce on a large scale.
Over the past 10 years, the rough terrain lift truck market has decreased due to the increase in telescopic-handler purchases. The telescopic handlers are may just be the future that this specific type of machinery is evolving to. The telehandler's task is placing a load with a long reach. The rough-terrain lift truck continues to be the heavyweight champ when it comes to pure grunt lifting.
The company Omega makes many different lines of lift equipment and a whole variety of rough-terrain forklifts. The Mega Series is an established line consisting of bigger vertical-mast units. These units offer lifting capacities varying from 8000 pounds all the way up to 20,000 pounds. The next step was to enable lifting capacities up to 50,000 pound and the HERC Series was developed to do this task. The more complex and bigger machinery required, the more specialized that OEMs like Omega become.