Right choice or articulated folly?
December 1st 2007

One of Ireland's leading providers of stationery products has recently switched its supplier of articulated forklift trucks and re-equipped its warehouse fleet with a number of award-winning Flexi G4 articulated forklifts from Narrow Aisle

The company had been operating articulated trucks at its facility for some three years, and, although it remained convinced that the articulated forklift truck concept brought significant efficiency and productivity gains to its operation, the decision was taken to seek a new supplier after the firm's forklift fleet developed persistent mechanical problems that led to unacceptable downtime in and around the warehouse.

The stationery producer had been operating a fleet of Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) powered articulated trucks at its site which is close to Dublin. However, the trucks' converted LPG engines' potential to leak water, hot engine oil and hydraulic fluid left the company with little alternative but to reconsider its choice of supplier for its primarily clean warehouse application.

With the cost of propane rising due to the record oil prices, the trucks were also proving much more expensive to run than had been anticipated.

"Once we had demonstrated the efficiency of our electric-powered Flexi G4, the company needed little convincing that their long term interests would be better served by selecting what is the original front wheel drive electric powered articulated truck – the Flexi," says John Maguire, Narrow Aisle's sales and marketing director.

LPG-powered articulated forklifts combine the very narrow aisle performance of an articulated forklift truck with the power and availability of a propane-powered forklift – which is attractive to many specifiers.

Narrow Aisle's Flexi GAS model features a three-way catalytic converter, plus the proven GM LPG engine which provides power on demand for maximum productivity.

But it is essential to specify the most appropriate truck for the application and environment it has to work in. "It was clear that, for the stationery company's requirements, a gas-powered truck was not the best choice," says Maguire.

"Gas powered articulated trucks are at their best at sites where they are required to operate on demand, perhaps for an hour at a time and then left idle for a long period, over two or three shifts. In such cases, a single bottle of gas is usually sufficient to power the truck over three shifts and this can be more economical than frequent battery changes. Gas trucks should also be considered where more than 50 per cent of the truck's work takes place outside. In any case, warehouse buildings should always be well ventilated when gas trucks are operated.

"Unfortunately, I believe that there is a tendency among some suppliers to oversell the advantages of LPG trucks. As a result, some users operate them for applications where electric-powered trucks would be more efficient. This appears to have been the case with our stationery client." "Sadly for the company concerned, the resale value of their original trucks was not high. This meant that the whole experience, cost them several thousand Euros – although they are so content with their new electric-powered Flexi G4's that they have no regrets about making the change." Three decades of experience Based in the industrial heartland of the United Kingdom, Narrow Aisle has been one of Europe's foremost manufacturers of very narrow aisle (VNA) equipment for over three decades.

The company's range of VNA products includes man-down and man-up trucks, order pickers and reach trucks, but Narrow Aisle is perhaps best known as the original manufacturer of front wheel drive articulated forklifts, the award-winning Flexi range.

The Flexi is now the biggest selling articulated forklift truck model in Europe.

Trucks for the European market are designed and built at Narrow Aisle's UK manufacturing facility and distributed through a fully supported distributor network.

"Over the last 15 years we have focused our attention on building an authorised distributor network across the globe and all Flexi front wheel drive articulated trucks are built by us and supplied to customers with properly organised after-sales service and parts support," says Maguire.

"This has brought a number of benefits – not the least of which is the fact that the resale value of a five year old Flexi truck in the European market is often over twice that of alternatives." Effectively two trucks in one, the Flexi's design enables it to load like a counterbalanced machine – both inside and outside. But it can also work in very narrow aisles, guaranteeing a wide range of benefits – not the least the ability to load and unload lorries and deliver pallets directly into the racking in a single operation. By doing so, it increases efficiency and productivity while abolishing double handling and the costs associated with operating a bigger truck fleet than is necessary.

The most significant recent development from the company – the Flexi Generation 4 – includes all of the design features that Narrow Aisle claims have established the Flexi as Europe's biggest selling articulated forklift, and also includes a number of significant operator safety-related advances.

The truck's contribution to improved safety in and around the warehouse, was recognised earlier this year when the Flexi G4 was named winner of the prestigious British Materials Handling Federation (BMHF) Safety Award for 2007.

"During the development of the G4, Narrow Aisle's design team set out to produce a product that incorporates all the safety features required by the North American market and also meets all the relevant safety legislation demanded by the European Community," Maguire concludes.

"The resulting award-winning G4 is, we believe, by far the safest and most productive articulated on the market."

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