Daewoo

Doosan Industrial Vehicle America Corporation (DIVAC) is headquartered in a 170,000 square foot facility in Buford, Georgia, and is home to its Sales, Marketing, Parts, and Warehousing departments. The U.S headquarters also has a state of the art parts operation that supply over 25,000 line items to support its affiliate Groups. The Industrial Vehicle group supplies high quality material handling equipment to the North American over a network of 80 independent dealers. DIVAC dealers operate over 200 sales and services locations in the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada.

Start-up of the Forklift Business - AS of the late 1960's, South Korea's forklift market was starting to become an open-import type market, when the Korea Machinery Co, Ltd began to import already assembled forklifts as an industrial machinery expansion project. The sales of this project were focused on state-run corporations, armed forces and large business groups. This has led to a merge of Daewoo Heavy Industries Ltd. in 1967 and the forklift division that would open business outlets all over Korea to sell and service this equipment. In 1977, a forklift production plant was completed, and all the focus was pointed towards developing products and importing the quality trough continuous technical training.

Expansion of Forklift Exports - Daewoo domestic forklift business began in 1967 and grew to 90 % market share in South Korea. In the 80's, Daewoo's technology and improvements gave them a chance to significantly grow in their forklift business. CAT of the USA, offered a forklift proposal to join venture projects in 1981 to face competitive pressures in the USA material handling industry that was significantly improved Daewoo's forklifts business. In 1984 finalization on a new plant which helped gives the foundation for the manufacture of high added value products for export. By 1993, the company was already well know and made worldwide sales networks and started to export models, developed through in house technology, as an independent brand. The company later has received certifications from CE of Europe, UL of the USA, ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, promoting the export into overseas markets.

Development of New Models - In 1998, the Forklifts developed new models starting with the g5 series (4,000 - 6,500 lb internal combustion trucks). A 3 year R&D development program resulted in the development of new technologies for engines, hydraulic systems and transmissions. The products quality has been validated through number of durability and performance tests. Product reliability of important parts has been achieved over years of the company’s reliability evaluation centers. Significant changes were made in operator comfort and environmental friendliness that has resulted in very good customer satisfaction. The sales division made a big scale field after sales surveys as part of new marketing strategy for this new family of trucks. The G5 model is recognized through the world for its reliability, durability and friendly operator features.

Worldwide Dealer Network - To expand their market overseas, the Forklifts group has established parts supply bases in the US, Belgium, Brazil and Singapore. Company has also made a new dealer system of 550 places in 90 countries in the world. This dealer network distributes over 150 different forklift models, both electric powered and internal combustion, to meet a requirement of a large variety of customer needs in the material handling marketplace.