Toyota Material Handling

Toyota Material Handling (TMH) is the market leader in forklifts and material handling across North America. With over 4,200 technicians, 230+ branch locations, and over 1 million square feet of U.S. manufacturing space, they have produced more than 700,000 forklifts on US soil.

But a Toyota forklift is more than a machine. It’s backed by quality, durability, reliability, and overall value that customers can count on. That commitment lives through the After-Sales Service Evaluation and Certification (ASEC) program. Making sure every workshop, van, and technician delivers to Toyota’s high standards.

ASEC is grounded in Kaizen and the 5S principles: Sort, Systematize, Shine, Standardize, and Sustain. The first four are simpler to roll out. The hardest part? Sustaining the improvements.

To scale and sustain those standards across North America, TMH turned to SafetyCulture.

The challenge: A paper-heavy process that couldn’t scale

The ASEC is rigorous. It requires dealers to meet 120+ standards covering service vans, facilities, SOPs, and technician practices. To pass, they must achieve a 90%+ score and they need to recertify every three years.

Before SafetyCulture, the process for each certification was manual and unsustainable:

• Hundreds of documents and 1,000+ photos were managed in Excel and often mailed on physical drives.

• Completing the certification paperwork alone could take up to five days.

• Feedback loops were slow, leaving dealers uncertain about where to improve.

With a growing dealer network, TMH needed a way to simplify ASEC, reduce wasted time and help teams on the ground to embed the learnings and improvements into their daily operations.

The solution: From spreadsheets to real-time transparency

TMH has turned ASEC into a streamlined, collaborative process.

Instead of chasing documents across spreadsheets and zip drives, dealers now upload SOPs, photos and evidence into a single source of truth — the SafetyCulture platform. Evaluators can add notes, annotate images, and request updates in real time, keeping the process moving without delays. Toyota HQ, dealers, and even teams in Japan can instantly track progress, creating transparency across the entire network.

Just as importantly, SafetyCulture gives dealers the tools to make certification stick. With templates for mini-audits, self-checks, and other Kaizen activities, ASEC is no longer a once-every-three-years event but integrated into daily routines and processes.

As Preston Schoppa, VP of Operations at Shoppa’s, explains: "It’s easy to look good on certification day. The hard part is sustainment. SafetyCulture helps us chip away every day so we don’t go backwards."

Saving time, sustaining standards, and strengthening trust

TMH has saved thousands of hours, cut unnecessary costs and freed up staff to focus on higher-value work since deploying SafetyCulture. Dealers are not just meeting Toyota’s standards, they are sustaining them every day. Technicians benefit from safer, cleaner environments and customers see the difference when they walk into an organized, professional shop.

There’s also the efficiency and savings associated with certification prep. What once took five days now takes a day and a half. Allowing TMH to save more than 600 hours in the first year alone and avoid over $100,000 in extra costs.

Dealers are completing certifications faster and more consistently. Real-time alerts reduce delays, grading is consistent across 300+ locations, and recertification rates have climbed from 60% to more than 95% on time.

The ASEC has shifted from being a one-off hurdle to a continuous way of working. Dealers run mini-audits and track progress throughout the year, technicians feel more supported and customers leave with greater trust in Toyota’s promise of quality and reliability.

Looking ahead

TMH is currently exploring how SafetyCulture can:

• Scale dealer self-assessments for ownership and sustainment.

• Use new analytics dashboards to track trends across dealerships.

• Integrate training modules for ASEC Champion development.

For TMH, SafetyCulture is helping sustain progress, strengthen culture, and drive improvement at scale. Like the forklifts Toyota is known for, the partnership is reliable, built to last and ready to keep business moving.
You could say SafetyCulture is keeping TMH in gear for the long haul, with no plans to slow down!