A company synonymous with high quality, ultra-efficient products, Narrow Aisle’s Flexi range of articulated fork lift truck-based intralogistics solutions maximise storage, handling and customer order assembly efficiency across the supply chain. John Maguire Commercial Director, Narrow Aisle UK and immediate past chairman of the UK Warehousing Association, spoke to Warehouse & Logistics News.
WLN – As a top Very Narrow Aisle supplier, what have conditions been like in the past year for your business?
Global sales of our products will reach an all-time high in 2016. The increase in volume sales that we experienced fully justifies our recent investment in developments at our UK and Asian production sites. Such is the sustained growth in demand for products in the Flexi range, that the additional capacity at our UK factory was utilized from day one. Sustained global distribution growth and sales to the rapidly developing e-fulfillment market are among the key drivers of our ongoing success.
WLN – How have recent international developments affected you and how have you responded?
A vote to leave the EU was not what most people were expecting and, like all companies operating in the global market, we will have to see how this momentous decision impacts on our business. However, given that we have been successfully distributing our product to many countries globally, in fact to date we have representation in over 60 countries.
But, as new trade agreements are forged, it is vital that there is no return to red tape and complex customs regulations that prove burdensome and costly for UK companies in the post war years.
WLN – What are your flagship 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 forklift 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 forklift 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 – What makes you the ‘go to’ supplier in your category?
Over the past two and a half decades more than 6000 Flexi AC units have been sold throughout the world and the Flexi truck brand has become synonymous with high quality, ultra-reliable products. The company’s long standing reputation for exceptional product reliability and customer service is unrivalled. Our unique 5 year parts warranty is testament to the confidence we have in our product.
WLN – How do you help customers improve their business performance?
The Flexi AC range has been developed to meet the material handling and storage requirements of customers operating in hugely diverse industries.
Although our clients are involved in the storage and handling of many different palletised products – from foodstuffs to engine parts – they all share at least one common aim: the need to save costs by maximizing efficiency within their storage operation. The Flexi range helps them to achieve this by eliminating double handling and increasing throughput to ensure that users make the most of the increasingly costly warehouse space that they have available.
WLN – How have you changed your offering to customers in the last 12 months and why? Have you added anything new?
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. At the recent IMHX, we announced the most recent addition to our range – the Flexi AC NANO TW/FW pedestrian operated VNA truck. The new model is a low-cost alternative to companies in the warehouse and retail logistics sectors who want to achieve the space saving and storage efficiencies associated with Narrow Aisle’s top-selling Flexi articulated truck range but for whom a pedestrian-operated Flexi is the ideal solution.
The truck is available in both two-way (TW) and four-way (FW) versions – both of which offer versatile performance.
The TW model allows multi-directional longitudinal travel while, with the FW variant, both longitudinal and transverse travel is possible – enabling pallets and lengthy loads to be handled in very narrow aisles. The Flexi AC Nano FW is ideal for handling long loads such as wood, furniture, pipework and steel.
Like all the electric-powered trucks in the Flexi range, the Flexi AC NANO’s Zapi AC drive motor technology ensures that the truck is highly energy efficient, smooth running and quiet in operation.
The Flexi AC NANO complements other Flexi articulated forklift models perfectly and will be popular with companies who want to maximise storage capacity but whose throughput requirements do not warrant an additional full size Flexi truck or when pedestrian operation is preferred.
WLN – Which markets 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 – Can you name some of your major customers and tell us 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
WLN – What’s been your most memorable recent project?
We recently completed another new solution for Go-Pak UK – a privately owned company that specializes in providing disposable products and packaging for the food service, cash & carry and retail sectors.
Such has been Go-Pak’s success that the company’s original 10 metre high UK warehouse facility, no longer offered sufficient storage space to allow products to be held in the quantities required to maintain optimum supply chain efficiency, so in May 2016 Go-Pak moved to a new 13 metre high, 76,000 sq ft facility in the Gloucester port town of Sharpness. Located on a site owned by Howard Tenens, Go-Pak’s new high bay store, is three times the size of the company’s former unit.
The high-bay store which, when full, has capacity for nearly 10,000 standard 1200 x 1000 mm ISO pallets, is designed around a narrow aisle configuration and is served by articulated forklift trucks from our Flexi range.
Design engineers from Narrow Aisle’s Warehouse Systems Division worked closely with Go-Pak’s logistics team to develop the most efficient and cost effective storage system for the company.
Moving all of its current stock from its old multi shed site to a new state of the art facility was a daunting prospect for Go-Pak but, with Flexi Warehouse Systems’ help, the whole project was implemented smoothly and within the timescales allocated.
The reliability and total efficiency of the Flexi truck over many years has been a key factor in Go-Pak’s success and as the company has grown so too has the size of its Flexi fleet.
Go-Pak has achieved market dominance in a highly competitive arena thanks, in part, to the Flexi’s role in ensuring that its warehousing costs are minimized and intralogistics efficiency is optimized.
Of course, Go-Pak has evaluated other copycat articulated forklift products that are now on the market but, having done so, the company quite rightly remains fiercely loyal to the Flexi brand.
WLN – Looking ahead, what factors do you see affecting your business? How are you turning these into opportunities?
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 Ltd’s products will reach an all-time high in 2016.
WLN – Which major trade shows and other industry events are you involved in over the next year?
Narrow Aisle has a high profile at most UK and international trade shows and 2017 will see us well represented at events around the world – from Coventry to China, including the odd event in the EU!
WLN – What headline news from Narrow Aisle can our readers look forward to seeing in Warehouse & Logistics News in 2017?
Flexi sales reach all time high as customers enjoy the benefits of groundbreaking intralogistics solutions that give them a real competitive edge over their direct competitors.
WLN – And finally, in our social media age, if you had to sum up your company in a 140-character tweet what would you say?
What’s a ‘tweet’? Seriously in our business to business intralogistics sector there is a need to be in close contact with key customers 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 FLEXI
0121 557 6242
Comments are closed.