Bendi is currently celebrating its thirtieth anniversary. The pioneering articulated fork lift truck shares its launch date with Breakfast TV, which also debuted in 1983. Back then Breakfast TV had been the US’s staple viewing diet for three decades, but the British public was wary of the innovation.
“It was a huge risk,” the programme’s editor, Ron Neil, recently recalled. “So many people were against the notion of breakfast TV, and were willing it to fail.”
The Bendi’s launch in the same year met similar derision, prompting such unhelpful headlines as ”The truck bends, but will the customer?” However 30 years later the Bendi is spearheading the articulated market – probably the largest growth sector in the materials handling sector globally – as enthusiasm about its abilities goes viral!
The Bendi came into being after leading fork truck engineer Freddy Brown, who had previously brought the Man Up VNA machine to the market during the 1960’s, became frustrated in the late 1970’s with the limitations brought about by Trilateral Head Stackers, or VNA as it is more commonly called. He sought a solution that wouldn’t be captive to the warehouse and could do the work of both counterbalance reach trucks and VNA machines – and so the Bendi was born.
The Bendi truck is able to work in 1600mm aisles – 200mm smaller than the modern VNA’s it set out to replace – and go directly outside with pallets and load them onto a lorry in one movement, bypassing the need for reach trucks, VNA or counterbalance forklifts. It is this innovation that has created the demand for the product worldwide.
Today, Freddy’s son Simon Brown heads up Translift Bendi. He spoke to Warehouse & Logistics News.
Warehouse & Logistics News – First of all, Simon, how do you sum up the Bendi proposition in 2013?
I recently told a dealer in Holland that Bendi were the inventors of the articulated truck in 1983. His retort was “so what!” This made me stop and think: Yes, so what? But it’s not the fact of being first that makes Bendi the market leader; it was the getting there, the journey to being first that made the difference! It gives you, through trial and error, an acute sense of what works and what doesn’t. You feel the truck, drive the truck, get frustrated with bits that get in the way and morph the design into what it’s become through its 30 year life, and all this without any road map -true pioneering.
Having been the lone pioneers of articulated trucks for 10 years, we had created a market, which other manufacturers would become interested in too. Once the concept was established the blueprint was easy for others to follow, but hard to improve upon. Being first however gave, as it does today, the knowledge from trial and error, frustration and elation, and therefore the ability to hone and evolve the product and it’s this that has forged today’s Bendi, which has remained market leader throughout this 30 years reign. Our proposition has always been to offer a compelling competitive advantage over other manufacturers’ machines. Today, what is unique to Bendi throughout the range is the ability to work in aisles as narrow as 1600mm. An enviable advantage considering the truck’s primary design criteria, its “raison d’être” is to save space.
In addition to the established Bendi range of warehouse trucks, we want to take the successful concept of space saving to other market sectors such as the pedestrian lift truck market, for use in manufacturing, printing, and retail. In another direction we are making a purpose built cold store cab for the food industry so they too can enjoy massive space savings in what tends to be confined and expensive warehousing. Finally in a branch into the order picking market, previously closed to articulated trucks, we wish to take advantage of the market that coexists alongside pallet storage with our new Bendi order picker.
WLN – As Managing Director, what is your role in the company day to day?
Are you directly involved in developing solutions for customers? My job varies quite a lot from day to day. I could be with auditors, solicitors, health and safety, the design lads, production, service or hire. Alternatively, I could be in front of customers in South Africa or Australia or doing a demo in Birmingham with a driver, whilst arranging a photo shoot or video for the web or other PR in the afternoon. This is the way I get the ideas that provoke the new designs, and both Paul Overfield, the other director in the business and I, are involved throughout the development of our new products.
WLN – When was Translift founded? Who owns it now?
Translift Engineering was formed in 1964. Ray Farr, the son of one of the founders, ran the company with a partner who retired when my father joined in 1982. Ray and my father ran the business until 1995 when Ray sold his shares back to the business, and I joined John Ryan and my father in the business. 2007 saw both John and my father retire, and Paul Overfield and I took over the reins.
WLN – Can you run through the different products and services that Bendi provides?
Bendi consists of four principal trading activities – the manufacturing of the Bendi here in Redditch, and sales of the trucks into the UK and for export. Then there’s the hire department, where we have a 400 strong casual hire fleet, and finally the service department, which makes the UK sales and rental sides run so smoothly. Outside these activities is the continuous product development development, which touches on many aspects of the business in terms of input and output of the ideas into equipment.
WLN – With export sales growing, why have you decided to ramp up manufacturing here rather than overseas?
Like many manufacturers we have used the Eastern Europe and Asian production route with great success over recent years, but high local manufacturing costs and an incredibly fast growing market meant we had to source engineering partners with the right ability and the right cost base. We recognised that the only way forward for our industry and our country was to bring it all back home. Britain now has a competitive cost base, all the required skills and, hopefully, a growing commitment from the UK government to assist manufacturing. That is why for the past five years, Translift Bendi has focused on growing its UK manufacturing base to be capable of building all of its products for sale worldwide. That effort and success has paid dividends in Bendi’s sales, with customers realising that they are dealing with a true manufacturing base, not an order taking office.
WLN – Can you tell us about your recent investment in UK production?
We already had a highly skilled and dedicated workforce in our factory in Redditch, but to cater for our planned growth we have recruited new people as well as investing heavily in existing buildings, machinery and a brand new parts centre. Our careful but ambitious approach to the global market has helped us reach a very exciting place whereby we are not only building our own business but helping to grow the UK economy through increasing manufacturing and predominantly for export, the key to national growth.
WLN – What sets Translift Bendi apart? Why buy a Bendi truck from you?
We are the people with the ideas, the pioneers who create the market and set the standard for others to follow. We never want to get to a stage when we are offering “like for like” products, because if you stall you die. We want to stay in front and pull ahead. There’s no better feeling in the world than when a customer makes the assumption that all the articulated offerings are like for like and then showing what the differences are, and what those differences will do for their business or operation. That’s what makes it all worthwhile.
WLN – What new products and developments will you be showing at IMHX?
We will be launching two major innovations at IMHX, designed for our core audience and to reach out into other markets. The first one is the first true cold store cab for an articulated truck. There have been many attempts by truck and cab makers alike at an articulated truck cold store cab, but it’s fair to say they don’t yet meet industry expectations, as the articulated truck is not as simple as a Reach or VNA in terms of bolting on a cold store cab. There are lots of angles, curves and covers, all necessary for the function of an articulated truck to perform. Additionally the Bendi has been designed with the ambient or even tropical warehouse in mind. Ingress of airflows has not been important until now, but in a cold store with temperatures as low as -30 C, this can cause considerable discomfort when it comes into direct or even indirect contact with the driver.
We’ve designed the cab in-house specifically for this use and built a variation of the Bendi to make a perfect match for the cab in a cold store. We’re excited about releasing this to the cold store operators, who we know are pressing hard for a better materials handling solution.
Our second release at the show will be the order picking Bendi. With the demand for next-day deliveries now becoming the norm, customers are moving a larger proportion of their available floor space over to picking rather than bulk storage. Whilst most picking operations are carried out with great efficiency, there remain two sticking points when an order picker picking at ground level reaches an empty pallet location. First, the operative will put out a call for the reach truck to bring down a pallet from the second level, which interrupts the picking process and causes unnecessary delays or missed picks. The second area for improvement is that the aisle required for this replenishment is normally 3m, meaning that order picking involves wide aisles and therefore higher operational costs.
Bendi are launching the Order Picking Bendi exclusively at IMHX, which will eliminate the need for other trucks to replenish the picked locations and the aisles can be as small as 1600mm, offering exponential operational savings.
WLN – Will you be showing any developments from your core range at IMHX?
Yes, we will. The Bendi line-up has been enhanced since the last IMHX in 2010. The B313 and B318 have been joined by a B312 and B315 to meet customer demands; the B318 has undergone a complete redesign in terms of ergonomics and maintenance accessibility, to be seen for the first time at IMHX; and the mini Bendi, now fully in production, has many refinements on the prototype first seen at IMHX10.
WLN – How important are shows like IMHX to your company and its strategy?
It’s key to the market place, our direct customers and our industry customers who buy the Bendi for their own customers, as they get to see all the new products and the direction of the business.
WLN – The big question: why should a busy professional from the logistics industry take a day out of the office to visit your stand?
It’s important for everyone in our industry to see what’s new and what is possible now, that wasn’t before. If not, we’d all still be hand-balling goods from ship to shore. It important to see the new technology and embrace the ideas that are going to move your own operation forward – your competitors may be getting a competitive advantage that you don’t yet know about.
WLN – Finally, looking at the wider picture, what do you see as the biggest pressures on users of fork lifts? How will you help them?
For our customers it comes down to space, time and money. Nobody actually wants a warehouse or forklifts, they are a means to an end, a byproduct of what you want to do to achieve your business goal, so why have it bigger than it needs to be? Every square meter of warehouse has to be paid for in terms of purchase or construction, heating and rates. And why go for a super flat floor, it adds cost but rarely value to the warehouse? At Translift Bendi we are committed to continue to offer the cheapest way to store pallets in pallet racking – whatever the land and property costs, it can be done 30-50% better with a Bendi.
Tel: 01527 527411
email: info@bendi.co.uk
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