Guests gathered for Flexi's anniversary celebrations.

Narrow Aisle Limited recently marked the 25th anniversary of the development of the original Flexi Articulated truck concept with a series of distributor open days at its UK manufacturing plant.

The success of the articulated forklift concept has been built around its ability to work comfortably and safely within very narrow aisles, increasing productivity by up to 30% compared to conventional reach-type trucks.

"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 counterbalance forklift working outside and feeding a reach truck inside the store or warehouse," says Peter Wooldridge, founder and managing director of Narrow Aisle Ltd.

"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 m and lift pallet loads to heights of over 13 metres, Flexis could save warehouse operators at least 30% of their storage costs."

Over the past two and a half decades, more than 5,000 units of the Flexi AC have been sold to customers operating in 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 maximising efficiency within their storage operation," Wooldridge notes.

Flexi Narrow Aisle manufactures and markets the Flexi range of articulated forklift trucks. Flexi trucks, designed and manufactured at the company's UK manufacturing plant, are distributed in the UK and worldwide through a fully supported distributor network.