Narrow Aisle Ltd is one of the world’s foremost manufacturers of very narrow aisle (VNA) warehousing equipment. Narrow Aisle manufactures and markets globally the award-winning Flexi AC range of articulated warehouse trucks. Flexi trucks, designed, manufactured and distributed from the company’s UK headquarters in Europe and world-wide through a fully supported authorised distributor network.
Sales & Marketing Director, Narrow Aisle Limited
John Maguire, Sales & Marketing Director at Narrow Aisle Limited, spoke to Warehouse & Logistics News.
WLN – What are your best-known products and services?
Narrow Aisle Ltd is a materials handling solutions specialist. We design, build and distribute a range of intralogistics solutions but, we are, of course, best known for our Flexi range of articulated space saving warehouse trucks.
The success of the articulated forklift concept has been built around the fact that the truck’s clever design allows it to work at the same speed as a counterbalance forklift and then operate comfortably and safely within very narrow aisles. By doing so, throughput and productivity increases by up to 30% compared to systems featuring conventional reach truck technology. Until the Flexi Front Wheel Drive articulated truck was developed by Narrow Aisle, companies had little alternative but to operate a two truck system with a counterbalanced forklift working outside and feeding a reach truck inside the store or warehouse.
But, with our pioneering development of the Flexi, users realised that they could eliminate often costly and generally inefficient doubling handling arrangements. 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. And with their ability to operate in aisleways as narrow as 1.6 metres and lift pallet loads to heights of over 13 metres, Flexis could save warehouse operators at least 30 per cent of their storage costs.
WLN –Which market sectors and countries are your customers in? Which ones are growing fastest?
Third party logistics (3PL) services companies have always been among our biggest user group and, these days, 3PLs are at the forefront of the online shopping boom.
The online shopping channel currently accounts for in the region of 12 per cent of all UK consumer spending and it is forecast to reach a staggering 40 per cent in the not too distant future.
In the hope of gaining competitive advantage, internet retailers are increasingly looking to their logistics processes to accelerate shipping timeframes and reduce costs. With most shoppers not prepared to wait longer than a day, or, increasingly, a few hours, to receive their goods, it is those retailers that can offer the fastest delivery speeds who are winning the most business.
As a result, many online retailers see supply chain efficiency as being as important as the quality and price of the goods they sell so their 3PL partners need products and picking systems that maximize their clients’ efficiency.
The extensive range of low capital cost, truck based intralogistics solutions designed and built by Narrow Aisle Ltd, contribute to the more efficient operation of many e-fulfilment centres.
For example, our Flexi VNA range of articulated warehouse lift trucks operate comfortably and safely within narrow storage aisles yet still allow safe customer order picking activity to be carried out at low and multi level – an important consideration for fulfilment centre operators where the ability to quickly and accurately collate picked goods has a direct link to system efficiency, lower operating costs and customer satisfaction.
WLN – Who are your major customers and what do you do for them?
Narrow Aisle has a client list that includes some of the biggest and most powerful names across the logistics, manufacturing and retail sectors – not just from the UK, but around the world. For anyone interested, some are featured on our website – www.flexi.co.uk However we pride ourselves on also being able to address the needs of smaller and medium sized customers who are really able to obtain real benefit from the space saving and dual inside to outside capabilities of our products. We also offer them a range of entry level refurbished Flexi truck options to provide all the cost saving benefits even in the smallest scale warehouse operation.
WLN – How do your products benefit your customers’ businesses?
It goes without saying that our product range is always evolving, but the stability of our offering plays a significant role in the Flexi’s success.
At Flexi we gear our energy towards making our established articulated forklift ranges more productive and more customer friendly. The Flexi articulated truck concept is now established technology – comparable, for example, with the technology behind a counterbalanced or reach truck.
By focusing on established and successful design principles and quality components we have been able to develop products that offer ever higher throughput efficiencies and safety and the lowest running costs.
Recently we announced the addition to our range – the Flexi AC StorMAX, this system provides users with the opportunity to increase their existing storage capacity by up to 50%. The investment cost per pallet stored is the lowest in the industry. Pallet throughput is very efficient, productivity rates of 25/30 pallets per hour have been reported.
The Flexi AC StorMAX complements other Flexi articulated forklift models perfectly and will be popular with companies who want to maximise storage capacity but whose stock control requirements allow them to maximise utilisation of their existing warehouse capacity.
WLN – Why should customers choose you as their main supplier in your area?
It has been well documented that warehousing facilities are in short supply and this lack of good quality warehousing space is driving demand for our products. Quite simply, there are a huge number of existing warehouse buildings across the country constructed and equipped over the last 25-30 years. Due to the enormous changes in the retail market and the economy in general, many of these sites are no longer fit for purpose.
Often the original usage has changed completely and therefore the storage and material handling equipment installed is no longer efficient to say the least. This can present an opportunity to re-design and reconfigure, using new intralogistics technology and handling techniques, to create a much more cost effective operation often with a very attractive pay back period. The number of warehouse operators who, due to a lack of good quality, new-build warehouse facilities on the market, have been forced to reconfigure their existing sites to achieve the additional storage capacity that they require is one of the reasons why global sales of Narrow Aisle Flexi products will reach an all-time high in 2017.
WLN – What were the business highlights for you in the last 12 months? (Eg turnover breakthroughs, big contracts, awards)
We have seen a marked increase in larger scale warehouse operations converting to the Flexi Storage Articulated System, this in turn has seen the need for a fleet management approach to handle the larger scale of the sites and to manage the battery energy requirements, fleet maintenance and uptime availabity often to cover 24 hour 7 day three shift availability.
The development of modern intelligent battery charging and changing systems to reduce energy consumption down by up to 40% and the elimination of ‘two man’ battery changing has reduced indirect operation costs significantly in the larger scale operations.
The management of MHE support at these larger warehouse sites needs to be managed by integrated Service Management systems with mobile technology combined with fleet management database reporting back to site operators. In this way operational costs can be monitored and controlled.
WLN – What new products have you brought out?
Our product range has continued to grow, the trend towards higher warehouse building has resulted in our development of our higher lift product range the Flexi AC HiMAX. The need for more lift and weight capacity resulted in the design of a heavy duty ‘space frame’ lift mast range for our HiMAX product. The extra capability has been welcomed by our customer base who have gone on to order record numbers of HiMAX units lifting over 12 metres in height.
WLN – What factors do you see affecting your business in the coming year? How will you turn these into opportunities?
The continued growth being enjoyed in North America is a major opportunity for our company. The Flexi very narrow aisle concept is well established in the USA, the upward pressure on commercial land and real estate costs has made North America warehouse users and developers push the average height of new high bay buildings up to 16 metres, very reminisant of the changes our industry saw in the UK/Europe in the 1990s. This provides an opportunity to develop the strong market for Flexi Warehouse Systems in the Americas.
WLN – Are you planning to branch into any new areas, target new customers and take on more people?
Our focus has moved to the prosperous North America market and we expect significant growth for our Flexi product in that area. Luckily we have been steadily developing this market for the last 15 years, not just since the announcement of Brexit, so we do understand the market there and have the product range and local aftermarket support to allow us to achieve our growth targets there.
WLN – Are you involved in any major trade shows or other industry events over the next year?
The biggest show for our business next year are firstly the return to the Hannover Messe in Hannover 23-27 April 2018. The independent CeMAT show has now once again been incorporated into the largest trade fair in Europe. The return of this much more international Hannover fair format will allow our business to take advantage of that international exposure and the new business connections we can make around the world.
WLN – What big news from Narrow Aisle can our readers look forward to seeing in Warehouse & Logistics News in 2018?
We hope Flexi sales reach an all time high as customers enjoy the benefits of ground breaking intralogistics solutions that give them a real competitive edge over their direct competitors.
WLN – And finally, if you had to sum up your company in a tweet what would it be?
Not easy to sum up our diverse business in a tweet. Seriously, in our business to business intralogistics sector there is a need to be in close contact with our warehousing key customers and their client customers in retail and fulfilment to really understand their requirements. This level of contact goes well beyond the ‘short burst’ of social network contact a ‘tweet’ can provide.
NARROW AISLE LTD
0121 557 6242
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