Change of trucks saves company £20 000
November 1st 2006 By switching from two articulated and one counterbalanced forklifts to three electric Bendi forklifts from Translift Bendi, lock maker, Era Products, expects to save at least £20 000 over its five-year contract rental period. When the company moved to new premises in Walsall it designed the racking around articulating forklifts. These pivot steer trucks can work in aisles just 1.6m wide. Translift Bendi says that this gives operators up to 38% more pallet positions than reach trucks and 52% more than counterbalance machines. Era's warehouse aisles are 2.1m wide, which leaves plenty of room for the B313s. They lift both standard and double standard pallets (2400 by 1000mm) up to 5m, working a 24h day, five days a week. Era has a full maintenance contract, with emergency call-outs normally accomplished on the same day. Drivers are happy with the new trucks. They do not need constant steering adjustment when reversing down long aisles and the driver has a clear line of sight when interfacing loads with racking beams. Currently, Era does not use any paperless form of order picking, but the potential is there should it decide to go paperless. The Bendi's yard compatibility means the trucks, if equipped with RDTs, could take loads directly from lorries to racking locations and retrieve racked loads, cutting out any double handling. More articles from Translift Bendi Limited: | 
