The Flexi-ble friend
August 1st 2006

The ability to load like a counterbalance, combined with a capacity to work comfortably both inside and outside and within very narrow aisles, has established the articulated forklift as a popular choice with truck specifiers across a wide range of industries

West Midlands-based Narrow Aisle Flexi has been at the forefront of articulated and very narrow aisle truck design and production for the best part of three decades and the company's eponymous Flexi forklift– the latest version of which is the Flexi G3 – is now the biggest selling articulated model in Europe.

"Until the Flexi was introduced, companies had little alternative but to operate a two truck system with a counterbalanced machine working outside, feeding a reach truck inside the store or warehouse," says John Maguire, Narrow Aisle Flexi's sales and marketing director.

"With the arrival of the Flexi, users realised that they could eliminate this often costly and generally inefficient arrangement. The Flexi loads and unloads lorries and delivers pallets directly to the racking in a single operation. By doing so, it increases efficiency and productivity while abolishing double handling and the costs associated with running a bigger truck fleet than is necessary," he adds.

New solutions

Maguire continues: "To be competitive, profitable and successful, a modern logistics operation has to be consistently efficient and reliable, therefore it is essential that the solutions offered by materials handling equipment suppliers are of the highest standard. Increasingly, we find that manufacturers are seeking new solutions to their handling and storage problems.

"The warehousing function is a crucial link in any supply chain and, with the ever increasing emphasis on cost reduction, it is essential that manufacturers get the most from their storage cube and keep their fleet costs to a minimum. Articulated forklift trucks – such as the Flexi G3 – can increase pallet storage capacity by anything between 30 and 50%. So it's easy to see why more and more companies are using them."

Despite the large number of articulated trucks in operation worldwide and their proven ability to maximise storage efficiency, some users still perceive them as being difficult to operate when compared to, say, a traditional reach or counterbalanced machine.

This is simply not the case, says Maguire.

"A truck operator at one of our customers' sites told me recently that it is easier to stack pallets with a Flexi than it is to park a car!" he recalls. "In truth," he continues, "the popularity of the Flexi has been driven to a large extent by the fact that operators enjoy working with it."

The Flexi's front wheel drive format, combined with its clear fork visibility, allows drivers to stack and retrieve loads from within the storage aisle at up to 40 pallets per hour. According to Maguire, this level of efficiency is unsurpassed by any other articulated truck model on the market and is close to the efficiency achieved by counterbalance forklifts, which is some way ahead of tradition moving mast reach trucks.

Furthermore, he warns, not all articulated machines currently available, offer the same operator friendly qualities as the Flexi. "The fork and load visibility is said to be so poor on some recent designs that mast-mounted mirrors are required to see the forks. I am sure that these shoddy features have led some operators to believe that all articulated trucks have the same failings," he says.

Recent product innovations from Narrow Aisle Flexi include the Flexi GAS and the Flexi HiMAX. The Flexi GAS is the first LP Gas-powered articulated truck capable of working in aisles as narrow as 1762mm, while the HiMAX, which offers lift heights up to 12m, brings the benefits of unguided VNA storage to hi-bay warehouses.

Multi-shift environment

For operators who choose the electricpowered version of the Flexi, Narrow Aisle has developed a unique roll out battery change facility. The batteries are contained in 'cassette' type unit which can be quickly and easily removed for fast and safe changeovers – enabling the truck to operate comfortably and efficiently in a multi-shift environment.

"Because fleet uptime is so vital, the need to ensure reliability is a key consideration in the development of all Flexi products," says Maguire. "We specify high quality components that drive up reliability and reduce downtime to a minimum: the Flexi G3, for instance, will operate for five years of three shift working without major component failure. Over 60 per cent of the components used in the trucks in the Flexi series are common across the entire range and this is also critical in reducing downtime."

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