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Articulating Efficient Productivity

The articulated truck has long been promoted as a viable alternative to the traditional combination of a counterbalanced truck to unload and a reach truck to put away palletised loads and, in recent years, more and more fleet operators have been converted to the articulated approach.

“Until the articulated truck was introduced, companies had little alternative but to operate a two truck system with a counterbalanced machine working outside feeding a reach truck inside the store or warehouse,” said John Maguire, sales and marketing director at West Midlands-based Narrow Aisle Flexi. “With the arrival of articulated machines, users realised that they could eliminate this often costly and generally inefficient arrangement. Articulated trucks load and unload lorries and delivers pallets directly to the racking in a single operation. By doing so, they increase efficiency and productivity while abolishing double handling and the costs associated with running a bigger truck fleet than is necessary.”

The warehousing function is a crucial link in any supply chain and, with the ever increasing emphasis on cost reduction, it is essential that manufacturers get the most from their storage cube and keep their fleet costs to a minimum. Articulated forklift trucks can increase pallet storage capacity by anything between 30 and 50 per cent, so it’s easy to see why more and more companies are using them.

For over 30 years, Narrow Aisle Ltd has been one of the world’s foremost manufacturers of very narrow aisle equipment. Narrow Aisle manufactures and markets the award-winning Flexi range of articulated forklift trucks, which are designed and manufactured at the company’s UK manufacturing plant and distributed worldwide. Narrow Aisle also has outsourced manufacturing with a partner company in the Far East for the Asian and American markets.

Lp gas-powered articulated forklifts are in operation at many sites around the world, and their ability to combine the very narrow aisle performance of an articulated forklift truck with the power and availability of a propane-powered forklift is attractive to many specifiers.
However, as with any piece of materials handling equipment, it is essential to specify the most appropriate truck for the application and environment it has to work in.

“Gas powered articulated trucks are at their best at sites where they are required to operate on demand, perhaps for an hour at a time, and then left idle for a long period over two or three shifts,” said John. “In such cases, a single bottle of gas is usually sufficient to power the truck over three shifts and this can be more economical than frequent battery changes. Gas trucks should also be considered where more than 50 per cent of the truck’s work takes place outside. In any case, warehouse buildings should always be well ventilated when gas trucks are operated.

“At Narrow Aisle, we sell a lot of gas-powered Flexi GAS articulated trucks,” said John. “The Flexi GAS’s three-way catalytic converter, plus its proven GM lpg engine, which provides power on demand for maximum productivity, makes it a popular choice among specifiers.”

Pictured Above: Narrow Aisle Flexi GAS articulated truck.

Contact Narrow Aisle Ltd on 0121 557 6242
www.flexi.co.uk