Perfect ten: ten years of Bendi at DCS
August 1st 2009 DCS Europe, a UK top ten wholesaler (Grocery Powerlist 2009) of toiletries and household
brands, has operated Bendi articulated trucks in its warehouse facilities exclusively for
over ten years. In that time, the trucks have carried out an estimated 2.5 million pallet
movements. Warehouse Manager Jason Maxwell was instrumental in the original
decision to buy Bendis. Now, with the benefit of a decade of experience running Bendis,
he explains why the company remains committed to them
Back in 1998, having outgrown our
original premises at Atherstone in
Warwickshire, we built a new high
bay warehouse on the site. We had
previously operated reach trucks, but we
decided to take a look at narrow aisle trucks
for the new warehouse. At this time, we
became aware of the Bendi articulated
truck concept and we called Translift Bendi
in to discuss how Bendis could work for us.
They demonstrated that operating
Bendis would enable us to make much
better use of our space with around 40%
higher storage densities than we'd get with
reach trucks. The Bendi operates in aisles
down to 1.6m compared to 2.5–3.0m for a
typical reach truck. The racking layout in
the new warehouse was designed around
this feature – and four Bendi B40 trucks
were ordered, soon to be followed by a
fifth.
Success breeds success
In use it was immediately apparent that as
well as higher storage density, we were
achieving higher pick rates and many more
pallet movements per day. The Bendis
became a real contributor to the company's
success and rapid growth – so when we
needed to move again to larger premises, it
was a foregone conclusion that we'd run
Bendis at the new premises.
We moved from Atherstone to our
current premises in Stratford-upon-Avon in
2002. By now the company was carrying
literally thousands of product lines
including non-perishable foods, household
goods and pharmaceuticals.
Whilst the new premises are more than
6? times the size of the previous facility,
there is a height restriction due to
mezzanine floors and low ceilings in many
of the storage areas.
Unique solution
The guys from Translift Bendi came over
and did a site survey, which formed the
basis for our new racking layout and
established the requirement for a nonstandard
mast to be retrofitted to the
existing trucks and fitted to new trucks
ordered at the time. This mast design
allows lifting to 5.6m, with a closed height
of 2.8m and as far as I'm aware, it's unique
to the trucks we operate here at DCS
Europe.
The special masts, like every other aspect
of the Bendis, are brilliantly engineered and
built to last. This is borne out by the fact
that the original five trucks from the
Atherstone facility are still going strong as
part of our expanded fleet which now
numbers sixteen trucks in total.
Fifteen of the Bendis are B40s with the
special mast and the sixteenth is a Bendi
B41HL high lift model which is used by our
manufacturing division, in its adjacent
high-bay warehouse. This truck combines
all the benefits of the other Bendis, with an
incredible twelve metres-plus lifting
capability.
The team behind the trucks
In the ten or so years we've been running
Bendis, there's been another important
factor which has had a big influence on the
way we work: the expertise and support
from the Bendi team. We have built an
excellent working partnership in which the
two-way flow of information has created
real benefits for both parties. Their
expertise and in-depth product knowledge
has helped us to improve our operations –
and our feedback has helped them to
develop the trucks. From our initial
meetings over ten years ago, through
subsequent engineering support and
regular service visits, every aspect of our
relationship has been more than
satisfactory. There has never been any 'hard
sell', but I guess there's never been a need
as the product and support have always
been so excellent.
Today, despite the harsh economic
climate, DCS Europe is going from strength
to strength, with an increasingly diverse
customer base across various different
sectors. To serve them, we need to be
versatile, dependable and always quick-offthe-
mark – just like our Bendi trucks. More articles from Bendi: | 
