If any industry deserves the supreme accolade for innovation it should be the forklift industry. It even proves that some forklift developers can break the first law of marketing by giving the market what they think is best for them before the market itself realises it.
A good example of this was the pioneer of space-saving trucks, Freddy Brown, whose launch of the articulated Bendi truck back in the early 1980s met with scepticism from his competitors who regarded it as a Heath Robinson contraption. Guess who had the last laugh there?
Never daunted by opposition, adverse chatter and always listening to the market’s needs, Translift Bendi will be launching its new SpaceMate, designed to complement its existing range of Bendi articulated models to fill a large gap in the marketplace, says MD, Simon Brown. Scheduled for production later this year, “It will cost one third of the Bendi price while still allowing users to drive in only 2mt-wide aisles.” Warehouse operators who want space-saving but cannot justify a Bendi are left with traditional forklifts requiring 3-4mt-wide aisles. “The SpaceMate will cut the space required by up to 40% for one third of the cost,” says Simon.
In the Jungheinrich camp, the new Kombi Stacker – the EX514-516, electric order picker and trilateral forklift should raise eyebrows.
According to Jungheinrich’s Steve Richmond, the truck will operate over two shifts with a single battery charge, handling payloads of 1.6t up to a remarkable 18mt height, a level usually the preserve of stacker cranes. New motor technology lies at the heart of the model, which converts around 93% of the energy consumed into actual output, cutting energy losses by half.
Compared with the previous model, energy consumption falls by 15%, despite the truck’s much higher performance. A new, patented vibration damping system will allow the driver to travel more smoothly and up to 30% faster on substandard surfaces.
Low level order picking trucks may command less attention than their much bigger cousins but their impact on warehouse efficiency can be much higher. This is because order picking accounts for about half of a warehouse’s running costs and research shows that pickers on the front line spend just 53% of each shift actually in the order picking area of the warehouse. It’s hardly surprising then that any new, low level order pickers delivering up to 25% productivity gains should make waves. Mitsubishi deserves a bow in this respect after releasing the new VELiA ES range of 1t and 2t low level order pickers. Its much enhanced ergonomics, exceptional driveability and largest load platform mean that when put to the test against the industry’s leading competitors the VELiA was 20% more productive than its closest competitor.
There are, however, ways of improving low level order picking productivity remotely, a goal that Crown has succeeded in and been rewarded by the German Design Council last year. This was for its QuickPick remote order picking technology, the world’s first semiautomated order picker of its kind.
A remote control picker’s glove and laser sensors on the truck allow the truck to be manoeuvred from a distance, thus sharply reducing the distance a driver must walk while carrying loads, boosting productivity by up to 25%.
Perhaps more than most years 2016 promises many more truck developments that can only improve the buyers’ satisfaction, and not only in terms of costeffectiveness.
Yale Europe, for example, sees the future of energy consumption and supply as one of the major global challenges to logistics. “We are addressing it by investing in fuel cell and lithiumion technology along with continuous efficiency improvements in all of our products,” says Ian Melhuish, Vice President, Product and Industry Solutions. Never short on innovations, Combilift will be launching a new Straddle Forklift with rotating fork attachment fitted with four or more forks.
Clark will also be extending its truck range this year.
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