Saint Gobain opts for 10 year forklift management deal

Saint Gobain has signed a £100m, 10 year contract with Rushlift for the management and maintenance of its 2,000 forklifts. The deal will also see the construction supplier order numerous new Doosan and Combilift trucks.

The exclusive ten-year deal will cover a variety of UK manufacturing, retail and merchant sites and includes the company's Jewson, JP Corry and Gibbs and Dandy builders' merchants chains.

The scale of the agreement, over two years in the making and worth around £100m over the next 10 years, has prompted Rushlift to recruit 30 additional engineering, account management and administrative personnel, with more appointments expected to follow.

Rushlift Chairman, Peter Cosgrove, says the contract has only been made possible thanks to the efforts of Rushlift's national accounts, technical and service teams, and thanks to detailed negotiations with key suppliers.

Said Peter: “A great deal of credit has to go to everyone involved in this journey, from our sales and operations teams to our engineers and support staff, who have continually, and to the highest standard, demonstrated to Saint Gobain what we at Rushlift are capable of.”

During the long tender process Rushlift were given opportunities to demonstrate their abilities at several Saint-Gobain sites, opportunities which, Peter Cosgrove believes, allowed the company to outperform its competitors.

“We have been able to deliver higher levels of service at lower cost than our competitors and we have gained the business against competition from all the major companies in the industry. The agreement is on an unprecedented scale and we are excited by the opportunities and challenges it presents our business. It's a superb vote of confidence in our business values and approach.”