Bendi wages war on wasted space

The dual pronged challenge is having to creating a slick, UK-based production facility while, at the same time, offering innovative products to cope with the changes and challenges in UK and global markets.

It’s a challenge which produces unique demands on individual enterprises but one which Bendi, the UK’s leading manufacturer of articulated forklift trucks is approaching with energy and no little success.

Like many firms over the past decade, Bendi was attracted by the cost benefits of outsourcing some of its work abroad but soon realised that it needed to have more control over the final product so, with a growing order book and international costs rising, decided to return home. 

Simon Brown, MD of Bendi, explains how it worked. "We invested heavily in buildings, machines and, most importantly, people to accommodate the new products and to allow for increasing volume in existing lines,” he says. 

"The increase in orders both here in the UK and in export sales has thrown up some challenges but they are nice problems to have. We already had a highly skilled and dedicated workforce in the factory so to create even more skilled UK jobs has been very pleasing for everyone here.”

Bendi has not only established its reputation as an innovator in its field but is also recognised as the global provocateur of the "warehouse revolution” – what Brown describes as "the war on wasted space”.

The original Bendi truck was invented to do the work of several trucks however, with ever increasing demands for greater financial and operational efficiencies, customers were soon demanding additional performance requirements: the ability to fit into smaller aisles, make taller lifts and lift heavier weights to those heights. The Bendi has evolved into a high performance warehouse truck that can operate inside and out and deal with narrow aisles.

The shift in business from high street to the web has changed the distribution requirements from B2B to B2C, and put ever-increasing demands on operational efficiencies. 

Consumers’ expectations to ‘click and receive’ within days means that the ratio of picking in warehouses is increasing exponentially. It’s a development which has forced a change in the warehouse concept and the introduction of Bendi’s latest product – the award-winning Bendi Order Picker.

Winner of the prestigious FLTA Innovation Award, the Bendi Articulated Order Picker is the first truck designed to "self-replenish”. With two pallet handling locations, the operator can pick and replenish without the need to call for another machine, thus meaning the Bendi Order Picker can take advantage of its space saving aisle performance resulting in a near 50 per cent reduction in wasted space and a more efficient picking operation. 

By operating efficiently in aisles as narrow as 1.6m and with the ability to lift to heights of more than 12m, there is now a Bendi to suit all applications and budgets.