Translift Bendi's forklift rental deal saves ERA Products over £20,000
October 30th 2006

By switching from two articulated and one counterbalanced forklifts to three electric Bendi forklifts from Translift Bendi, locks maker, Era Products, expects to save at least £20,000 over the five-year contract rental period.

As Britain's number two locks supplier, Era has been producing security products at Willenhall for over 160 years and when, back in 1999, it outgrew its warehouse the company sought additional warehouse premises two miles away at Walsall but it was not as large as the company's distribution and inventory manager, Stephen Madden, wanted. The solution, therefore, was to make best use of storage space by designing the racking around articulating forklifts. These pivot-steer trucks can work in aisles 1.6 m wide compared with the minimum requirements of 2.6 m and 3.6 m for reach trucks and counterbalanced (cb) trucks respectively. This means a Bendi gives operators up to 38% more pallet positions than reach trucks and 52% more than cb machines.

Last year, Era's five-year truck rental contract came up for renewal but by going out to tender the company found that Translift Bendi delivered a better, all-round deal than the previous truck supplier. It chose two B313 and one refurbished B20 Bendi. This made better sense than the previous operation which relied on two articulated trucks and one cb machine because the three Bendis are all yard compatible trucks. At very busy times, therefore, having a third pivot-steer truck working in the aisles meant taking the pressure off the remaining two, something a cb truck could not do. The Bendis also allow more working space within the aisles compared with the old, replaced machines.

Era's warehouse aisle widths are 2.1 mt, which leaves plenty of room for the B313s, as they can work safely in just 1.6 mt, matching any dedicated VNA truck. They lift both standard and double standard pallets (2,400 x 1,000mm) up to 5 mt, working a 24-hour day, five days a week. Truck reliability, therefore is crucial, so Era has a full maintenance contract, with emergency call outs usually accomplished on the same day. The Bendi's over engineered nature is also a comfort in such working environments. Era's delivery service commitments are strenuous, with loads delivered anywhere in the UK by the day after order receipt.

Driver acceptance is always important when testing new forklifts, so what did Era's drivers think of the new Bendis? One driver commented that the Bendis' allowed easier placement and retrieval of pallets from the racking. Another advantage is that the Bendi does not need constant steering adjustment when reversing down long aisles.

Safety is yet another asset common to all articulated trucks. Unlike reach and cb trucks, the Bendi driver has a clear line of sight when interfacing loads with the racking beams. The Bendi also lacks rear end swing, a cause of much truck collision with racking. Overall, commented Stephen Madden, "the Bendis are good, efficient trucks, with no problems so far and they work very hard."

Currently, Era does not use any paperless form of order picking but the potential is there to hasten operations should the company feel justified in going paperless. Owing to the Bendi's yard compatibility, for example, the trucks, if equipped with RDTS, could take loads directly from lorries to the racking locations and retrieve racked loads in a like manner, thus cutting out any double handling. This double cycling of forklift movements would considerably raise truck productivity in terms of pallets moved per hour.

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