In praise of articulated forklifts

When first launched in Britain in the 1980s* the articulated forklift was derided by the competition as a Heath Robinson contraption that would go nowhere. Today it has found universal acceptance through the dramatic transformation of warehouse economics but is there still market reticence and ignorance of such trucks' full potential?

One hears a great deal about how space efficient the artics are over the conventional counterbalanced and reach trucks and understandably so because saved space can have knock-on benefits of reduced rates, rents, heating, transport costs, etc but is there much more to it than that? Yes, a great deal more. 

Take, for example, the artics' flexibility which leads to big productive gains, especially when they are fitted with RDTs. Such add-ons allow them to unload lorries in yards, where reach trucks are not really suitable, to deliver pallets directly into racking, and directed by the WMS then go straight to extract a pallet load for delivery to a waiting lorry. This can sharply reduce forklift fleet sizes and maintenance costs. 

I mentioned transport cost reductions as an advantage. This can be considerable when artics eliminate satellite warehouses through their space savings and the transport costs of running between them and a main warehouse which could be part of a production facility. 

So next time when strapped for storage space why not consider the artics as the answer to your prayers? UK suppliers of the artics are Translift Bendi, Flexi Narrow Aisle, Combilift and Mima (Wilmat Handling)

*The functionally limited Towmotor of the 1960s excluded.  

An articulated forklift shows the incredible 

space savings over a cb truck (up to 50%) and 

up to 30% over a reach truck