Large corporations, with extensive forklift fleets, might expect their equipment to be upgraded, tweaked and specified exactly as they want it, thanks to their considerable buying power.
That may be true, but now the attention to detail is also passing down to individual businesses, and even those looking at refurbished equipment.
Windsor Materials Handling is offering to add a splash of colour to the lives of its customers with individual paint jobs in the colours of their choosing.
In addition to a high quality refurbishment and tough, productive truck, the customer can present their corporate colours to the outside world, something that is of particular interest to businesses operating trucks in public areas.
One such company is the Grass Centre, a family run business offering a professional artificial grass service to the landscaping industry and domestic customers. Their latest diesel Komatsu forklift carries a carpet boom attachment for dealing with the rolls of artificial grass at their Washington headquarters. It’s also a distinctive shade of green!
Windsor’s Gemma Kitching explained that the colour scheme was achieved by going back to the customer and taking a sample for matching.
“We work hard deliver a truck that looks and operates as good as new,” says Gemma, “and if the customer wants a shade of green, blue or purple, we’re happy to oblige!”
Life Engineering is another local business that’s gone green with its own paint job. A long-time customer of Windsor, a recent relocation led to a new truck being required, delivered good as new in the company’s own distinctive colours.
Adds Gemma: “It’s one of the advantages of dealing with a supplier like us that has a small local business approach, but is part of a national company.”
Not much fundamentally changes in materials handling but the patented Archimedes outreach system from Baumann is the most important innovation in sideloader design in 40 years!
The new Baumann GX Series utilises the direct drive Archimedes screw and sliding blocks, to extend the fork carriage, whilst preventing transverse movements and eliminating unnecessary stresses.
The system means greater sensitivity and consistent control, and the maximum working speeds results never before reached.
The achievement was rightly recognised in the shortlist of the 2016 Forklift Truck Association Awards for Excellence.
Founded in 1804 in the historic port town of Boston, Oldrid & Co. Ltd. is a family owned business with six stores throughout Lincolnshire and a growing online business.
After a fantastic refurbishment of their Boston store the company looked to Windsor for equipment for their stores and neighbouring garden centre.
Likely to be on view to the public, the trucks would have low utilisation but require a high degree of reliability.
The perfect scenario for two new Tailift Z-Series.
Big companies could be hit by fines of up to £20m following consultation on a possible shake-up of health and safety sentencing guidelines. Kärcher the world’s largest cleaning equipment manufacturer, launched a campaign to remind businesses of the dangers of slips and trips.
The most common cause of major injuries in the workplace, slips are thought to cost industry over £512 million per year.
The company believes if the guidelines are adopted, organisations will need to review their health and safety processes or face the risk of a three or fourfold increase in expected penalties.
“Slips and trips account for over one third of major workplace injuries, and a loss of nearly one million working days in the UK,” said Kärcher’s Craig McKay.
“We welcome any consultation that sets out to improve public health and safety standards, we also want to highlight the economic impact this will have on businesses.”
Can supercharged lithium iron phosphate batteries bring electric forklifts…
The UK electric forklift market has gained ground in recent years, but its fair to say that the much heralded switch to battery power has largely stayed flat over the past few decades.
Our love affair with the internal combustion engine has meant that for outdoor use at least, diesel and LPG remain top dog. All that, may be about to change.
Battery technology has continued to advance at a rapid rate. Fronius chargers are growing in popularity and now lithium ion batteries are making headway, boosted no doubt by the success of electric cars from the likes of Tesla and Honda, and the growing popularity of electric vans and buses. Other lithium ion battery products are now in mass production and are used in industrial products by major corporations including Black and Decker’s DeWalt brand, the Fisker Karma, Daimler, Cessna and BAE Systems.
As ever, battery charging remains a sticking point for forkift users. Opportunity charging, i.e. the ‘topping up’ of batteries over a short period, causes more harm than good. Anything under 4 hours for a forklift battery is a waste of time, all it does is warm/cook the battery and invalidate the warranty.
Most batteries require much longer to charge, a factor not helped in lithium ion’s case by low electrical conductivity. This problem however has been overcome with the help of the letter “R” – coating the lithium iron phosphate (LiFePO 4) particles with conductive materials such as carbon allows the ions to move more easily within the battery.
Scientists at MIT discovered that by coating lithium iron phosphate particles in a glassy material called lithium pyrophosphate, ions also move faster than in other batteries. Such technology could reduce the weight and size of the batteries and dramatically improve recharging times. A small prototype battery cell has been developed that can fully charge in 10 to 20 seconds, compared with six minutes for standard battery cells, and leading to the prospect of a new dawn in the electric truck market.
Attachments manufacturer Invicta has developed a new protection device to prevent damage and scratching to forklift loads. The new Load Buffers attach magnetically to fork uprights, providing a 25mm encapsulated foam pad to cushion impact when loading and unloading and prevent collision damage with the fork carriage. The units are available to suit standard 80mm wide, 100mm wide and 125mm wide forks, but can be manufactured to suit any size or configuration of fork upright.
Clear visibility and reliablity are just a couple of the reasons why Komatsu forklifts get a great reception from our customers. One is windows experts SafeSytle that utilise a fleet of Komatsu and Combilift trucks at their West Yorkshire manufacturing site. The delicate nature of the product means control and precision are crucial and the large site, makes the application ideal for these diesel workhorses.
Lincolnshire-based Freshtime is a modern food business supplying chilled, value added, ready to eat salads, snacks, prepared vegetables and sandwich fillers to leading retailers and foodservice operators. Their aim is to set the standards for quality, service and taste that others will follow, and strive through modern equipment, ethical work practices and a commitment to reducing carbon, to be the type of business any major retailer would be proud to deal with.
New three & four wheel models launched by Doosan
Doosan has launched a new range of 1.5 to 2.0 tonne electric forklifts, the 7-Series.
The four-wheel B18X-7 now turns to 86 degrees, reducing the forklift’s turning radius by 160mm to just 1795mm. According to forklift industry statistics, 37% of counterbalance trucks sold in the UK last year were electric – a trend expected to increase as the focus on emissions continues.
Electric trucks are especially popular in the food and drink, retail and distribution sectors.
