I am a warehousing company, looking to better utilise floorspace, went down the turret truck path but our buildings to small/awkward to utilise efficiently.
We currnrtly use reach trucks but 3mt isles are a waste.
Has anyone got experience with the articulated types Bendi/ Flexi/ Aisle master, especially service and parts backup in Australia, seems like the agents here dont seem to stay agents for long which rings bells.
Also adverts seem to indicate upwards of 1.6mt isles, seems like that would be too tight to be efficient, anyone have experience with what is a practicle isle width?
We have a fast turnover of stock so speed of handling is quite important.
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MIMA Forklift have a 3-directional pallet stacker,it's save your warehouse' space,if you intersted in that,pls tell me,www.mimachina(dot)com for your consideration.
More power to you for coming back and admitting what went wrong. Most people would never say another word but your "real " world experience is what people crave for. Sorry you had to go through this but as you say we all live and learn. What's important is that the place it working now and you are a whole sight happier and probably don't go home and moan! Good luck and thanks for sharing.
Original poster back again.
A year has passed, the batteries are pathetic, max 2 hrs use between charges, dash lights up with fault codes, bendi do not seem interested in fixing and will not reply with a battery life spec, in fact I think they have removed it from their website.
We have given up, moved racking back to 3m isles and went back to reach trucks, productivity has doubled and product damage has reduced from severe to minimal again.
Forget Bendi, forget narrow isle is my reccomendation.
Hi Stustu,
Did you consider the Aisle-Master instead of the Bendi? The Aisle-Master has a 5 year/5,000 hour parts warranty at the moment.
Built by Combilift in Europe; Combilift is well known for building tough high quality specialised equipment.
I've been dealing with Adaptalift Hyster for over 10 years (they are the aisle-master dealer in Australia); I'm sure they can provide you with a solution, even if you decided to go back to reach trucks.
What width did you set your aisle at?
Danny, I agree with the idea you are saying but wouldn't use the word "greedy" Customers are seduced by too eager too young salespeople who believe those glossy brochures.I was one of 'em a long while ago.I did an install of a reach truck and came back several weeks later.They had backed out and taken down a rack upright and several bays.Then they re-organized my whole beautiful warehouse to be more workable with wider aisles.All because I believed what a spec sheet said. You live and learn.It is always a good idea to document what you agree to with a customer. There are two sides to every story.
This is often the problem with articulated machines, people get greedy with the amount of storage available and go for the bare minimum aisle widths that are so tight it makes the operation very slow and prone to damage. I would always recommend a 2m plus aisle to be safe depending on pallet sizes, this way it keeps the operation fairly fast and less prone to damage.
Sorry to hear that nobody wants to be in that pickle.If you are stuck with the truck for a while then you maybe have to look at other things to do to help the situation. Could you open the rack aisles out to get it to work better? Look at your loads and say do they always have to be full pallet in/out? Could we designate an area to be pallet in and split pick out? so you wouldn't be using the FLT as much? Put some loads that are several pallets per sku into flow rack.? I'm a rack guy more than a truck guy but I have a couple of customers with the Aisle Master and they love them.
Good luck!
original poster back 6 months later,
Purchased the Bendi, pretty dissapointed, the reccomended isle widths are too narrow for practical use, taking 3 to 4 times as long as a reach truck per pick and getting alot more product damage.
The machine is poorly designed and the manufacturer does not have solutions for design faults.
Machine has spent 3 days out of service during first 6 months of service.
In hindsight I should have stayed with reach trucks and lower density storage.
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I was just looking into Flexi's i had one out here for a trial but i wasn't totally impressed. anyone else used flexi's?
Jungheinrich also makes an electric turret truck with articulated mast, specifically for narrow aisle applications. Check 'em out StuStu....Jungheinrich is a quality brand truck also. Good Luck.
stustu -- Ring Power Lift Trucks has had lots of success with the Bendi product in the Miami area. They do perform well in very tight aisle widths.
StuStu
The biggest distributor in Australia is Bendi Australia. Best product and best support............2nd to none
Hi Stustu,
Adaptalift Hyster are the official dealer network for Aisle-Master, email or call us today and a Forklift specialist will be happy to provide some advice.
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