Long loads & high lifts

Simon Duddy recently had the pleasure of visiting several warehouses in the South West and South Wales to see a variety of bespoke Bendi solutions in their natural environment

There are times when a standard counterbalance truck simply won't do. Some warehouses have very specific requirements and therefore need bespoke solutions. I was fortunate to recently visit a number of warehouses in the Bristol and South Wales area and saw a number of Bendi trucks in action.

A good example of a truck well designed to tackle a specific issue is the Bendi Longloader (pictured below driven by Bendi's Edward Maxwell) deployed by Ensinger, a world leader in the field of engineering plastics at its UK headquarters in Tonyrefail, South Wales.

The handling challenge for Ensinger was centred on the building profiles it stocks.

These are used in aluminum windows and could potentially cause all kinds of headaches in terms of moving and storage.

What's more Ensinger made a strategic decision to store greater quantities of these profiles at its UK HQ in South Wales. This was the challenge that John Sullivan, Logistics Manager at Ensinger had to solve.

"We've been dealing with counterbalance trucks for 20 years but it was clear to me that a more specialist solution was needed for this job. I knew very little about that kind of truck, so the first thing to do was carry out a fact-finding exercise. This involved speaking to our materials handling supplier FTM," he explains.

The supplier introduced John to the Bendi Longloader and he and Bendi area manager Edward Maxwell talked through the specifics of the material handling challenge. John also found viewing online video footage of the Bendi Longloader in action a useful exercise in showing exactly how the Bendi manouvres in such tight spaces.

Simon Brown, md of Bendi explains: "The truck is specifically designed to handle long loads.With a normal truck, the load is at the front and when you turn the steering, the mast and the load follows.

"What we've done with this machine is un-couple the steering and the mast, so you can have the load going down the side and continue to steer on the front wheels and whichever direction you want to stack.

It means you're a lot more space efficient." Space-saving was the key advantage identified by John.With a new warehouse under his charge he was very keen to maximise space. Using the Longloader and cantilever racking, he got the building profiles into 2.4m aisles and could have gone tighter. The alternative would have been 7m aisles with standard counterbalance trucks, which was a nonstarter as it would have eaten up too much space in the warehouse.

Maximising space is especially important for Ensinger whose stockholding includes a range of more than 100 different engineering plastic materials in a wide variety of sizes. Clever use of space therefore helps to keep costs under control.

John also identified versatility and operator ease of use as advantages.

Ensinger uses the Bendi to carry regular loads also. The feedback from operators was positive despite some initial fear of change. Ensinger now has nine operators trained to use the Bendi truck.

Indeed, John has been sharing ideas with other Ensinger locations across Europe and it is possible the Bendi could be deployed at other sites within the company.

"We share ideas regularly on logistics and materials handling.We don't believe in re-inventing the wheel. If one part of the business has found a solution it makes sense to share it," says John.

Bendi B40 at Leekes Leekes, the independent retailer of homewares and home improvement products, has deployed another bespoke Bendi warehouse truck. Its warehouse facility at Pontyclun, South Wales serves the group's numerous stores and studios across the South West.

An important aspect of Leekes' operation is that it handles a very diverse range of products from paving slabs for the garden, to sofas and large electrical appliances. These often large and awkward loads represent a considerable handling challenge for Dai Morris,Warehouse & Logistics Manager at Leekes.

"We took the strategic decision to centralise our warehouse operation and bring the bulk of the product into the facility at Pontyclun. A lot of that comprises larger goods.We could have used upholstery trolleys and focused only on ground floor storage, but the best use of space was going for high racks in narrow aisles.We found the Bendi B40 to be the best solution for us to take on bigger products and awkward loads and deal with them at height," explains Dai.

The first thing a visitor notices at the Leekes's facility is the non-standard 7ft by 7ft pallets. These large pallets carrying heavy, bulky loads meant a truck with a tight turning circle was key.

Dai continues: "When dealing with large pallets, there is a large swing and you need more space in the storage or transport aisles. But the more space you use, the less racking you can put in. The most efficient use of space was to keep aisles as tight as we could and store as high as we could." Leekes carried out a comparison between the Bendi B40 and a reach truck and the company found the reach truck did not perform as was required within the space confines.

Dai concludes: "The guys love the trucks.We have four, three with long forks and one short fork. The reliability of the trucks is important to me. They do the job I want them to do.We run them for 20 hours a day, they don't break down on a regular basis and any time we've needed help from Bendi, their service operation has been excellent."

Bendi HighLift at Pattersons Next stop was Pattersons, a leading supplier of catering equipment and cleaning supplies to the hospitality, cleaning, healthcare and leisure industries.

Its Bristol-based warehouse was a big step up from its previous inner-city, store front with warehouse behind set-up and Chris Williams,Warehouse & Logistics Manager at Pattersons took the opportunity when moving to revamp the company's handling and storage scheme.

Chris explains: "When we moved from our old operations at the port in Bristol, it was a great opportunity to rethink our warehousing.We plan to grow and we made sure we had a facility that would power that, not just in terms of size but through maximising space." Chris examined VNA as an option, but came to the conclusion that it was not appropriate, and decided instead to have a look at articulated forklifts. After initial discussions with Bendi it was clear that this cost effective solution would allow Pattersons to add an extra two racking aisles and so they made the decision to go for the Bendi High Lift (pictured right).

"We looked at several brands and settled on Bendi in the end," he says. "From the outset we were very impressed with Bendi.

They were helpful, listened to our needs and came up with a cost effective solution.

When we went up to Bendi's factory we were equally impressed with the set up and pleased to see a high quality British engineering firm." Pattersons ordered one truck initially and bought another later, showing the satisfaction the company has with the Bendi HighLift truck.

Chris concludes: "We use the trucks intensely and things go wrong from time to time. But the service engineers come in, they know what's wrong and they solve the problem.

"Bendi has provided a good, economical solution for our warehouse. Bendi do what they say they will do and that is the test for us. That's how we do business with our customers and that's what we expect from suppliers."