The future looks bright for the Bendi articulated truck
March 28th 2007 Since the original Mark-I Bendi was unveiled in March 1986, the Bendi articulated truck has undergone continual development to refine the concept and bring ever greater benefits for users.
Originally conceived as a compromise between a reach truck and an inflexible narrow-aisle stacker, the Mark-I Bendi had the appearance of a reach truck body, with a stacker truck front end. Since then, Translift’s constant research and development has created an integrated design which has spearheaded a revolution in warehouse concepts and handling procedures.
Benefits of the Bendi include: counterbalance speed and flexibility, reach truck high-lifting capability, VNA truck aisle performance - aisles as small as 1.6m
Contrary to first impressions, articulated trucks allow much higher productivity, with better use of space. Bendi says operating articulated trucks in your warehouse means: more speed - more can be done in a given time, or less time is needed for a given task and more efficiency - more can be stored in a given space, or less space is needed for the same storage capacity.
So what’s next?
Translift Bendi has already developed what is says is the world’s widest range of articulated trucks, with electric and gas powered models catering for an extremely wide range of applications and now designers are currently working on new projects to take the articulated truck concept into new territory.
“The current generation of Bendi Trucks offer a degree of versatility that’s impossible to obtain with conventional trucks, allowing efficient operation both inside and outside the warehouse environment," comments MD Simon Brown "We’re undertaking a development programme to further broaden the applications for articulated forklift trucks. The potential is huge. For example, we’re currently looking at ways to bring an economical articulated concept to the world of counterbalance trucks and that market place will dwarf the present articulated market size.”
“Another exciting area of development is happening at the moment with models for high-level stacking. Initially, articulated trucks capable of lifting to 6m were considered state-of-the-art. Now, our average order is for models that can lift from 8-12m and beyond. Working in very narrow aisles at heights like this presents an area for exciting evolution that we are forging ahead with,” adds Brown.
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