Product category:
Stacking and picking, aisle trucks, tower trucks, container trucks
News Release from: Translift Bendi | Subject: Articulating, electric forklift trucks
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 25 October 2005
Forklifts' design adds 25% storage space
By closing down surplus storage premises, aerosol valve producer, Lindal Valve Co, are saving over GBP 30,000 a year on leasing costs alone, thanks to articulating, electric forklifts.
By closing down surplus storage premises, aerosol valve producer, Lindal Valve Co, are saving over GBP 30,000 a year on leasing costs alone, thanks to articulating, electric Bendi forklifts from Translift Bendi Based at Leighton Buzzard, UK, Lindal had two warehouses, including a 1,000m2 store across the road from its main plant, but following group rationalisation, which saw some production move to existing plants in Eastern Europe, the 1,000m2 finished goods store was no longer needed
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 16 Nov 2004 at 8.00am (UK)
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Given an articulated forklift's ability to store up to 30% and 50% more pallets than a reach truck and counterbalance truck respectively, it is possible to achieve quick payback on truck rental.
Lindal, however, was faced with the task of having to store more pallets in its remaining store and how best to resolve that.
Like so many warehouse operators, previously Lindal had been using a mix of reach and conventional counterbalanced (cb) trucks working in 3m wide aisles to handle its variety of pallet loads.
Reach trucks would handle racking work and the cb truck would perform yard duties.
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Gas-powered, articulating forklift will outperform all such competing trucks, particularly on space savings and will lift 1 tonne to 9m, higher than any similar specification truck.
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Each year, billions of pounds are still wasted in Britain through wrongly chosen materials handling equipment and logistics techniques, says Translift Bendi, which presents its ideas below.
Front-wheel drive forklifts work in less space
Large range of front-wheel drive fork lift trucks are being offered at lower prices that will match high-end reach trucks and will operate in narrower isles.
The solution was obvious enough: reduce existing aisle widths to 2.1m, but choosing the most suitable trucks was more problematic.
Lindal considered dedicated VNA (very narrow aisle) trucks and electric guided hybrid trucks but, "The former were rejected in the light of the restrictions they would place on our ability to adapt to future change in our group activities," explained Philip Owen, maintenance and engineering manager.
Such machines would also have been more costly to buy and run and ponderously slower.
The obvious front runner was an articulating forklift that could work in aisles only 1.8m wide, since 'man-up' capability was not essential.
Of the two main articulating forklift producers in Britain, the award-winning Bendi was chosen based on price, servicing package and driver preference.
During the rack moving exercise, Translift Bendi supplied an older truck on short term hire until two new ones were supplied in August on a five-year rental contract with full maintenance.
Training over two days was also provided by Translift for three drivers.
Compressing the storage width aisles from 3m to 2.1m has meant that Lindal has gained 240 extra pallet spaces, or a 25% increase, but there are other significant advantages.
The Bendis, for example, unload lorries to supplement the old reach trucks and so could go straight from lorry to racking duties, thus cutting out any double handling.
Most Bendi users agree that compared with reach truck operations the Bendi is 20% faster.
Safety is another major consideration.
Bendi drivers have a clearer view of their load when interfacing with racking beams than is possible with reach or cb trucks, and the trucks also lack rear end swing, a common cause of rack, truck and load damage.
The truck's large soft rubber wheels also mean that floors do not have to be of the highest quality to take the high wheel point loads from hard wheels typically found on reach and VNA trucks.
Rated at 1,750kg at 600mm load centres, the two Bendis can lift 1,250kg loads to 6.6m, Lindal's current top beam height, or 1,750kg to 3.3m, and both have side shift.
Around 15 Continental and UK trucks arrive each day and two container loads are exported every month.
Owen believes that by relinquishing the lease for the finished goods store the payback for the two Bendis will be two years but their value will grow as the company gears up to handle an expected 30% rise in throughput from the end of 2006.
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