John Maguire in a Flexi articulated truck.

Narrow Aisle Inc has signed an agreement to supply Bosch with over 20 articulated forklifts at four locations around the world.

John Maguire, Narrow Aisle's sales and marketing director, says the contract was won after Bosch and Narrow Aisle technical staff co-operated to produce a detailed computer simulation of Bosch's internal warehouse operation. The simulation highlighted the benefits of using the Flexi articulated truck.

The forklifts are working at Bosch locations around the UK and will be used at the Bosch facility in Hunan, China. Maguire says Bosch is also interested to use the trucks in locations throughout Europe.

The forklift fleet is supported by Narrow Aisle's global authorised dealer network.

"Obviously, companies like Bosch that operate their truck fleets on a global basis only deal with forklift suppliers who can provide well organised after-sales service and parts support worldwide," Maguire says, adding that Narrow Aisle has invested over 15 years developing a quality service authorised dealer network across the globe.

The Bosch fleet includes the Flexi G4 truck that was launched in September 2006. The forklift won the 2007 British Materials Handling Federation Safety Award.

The value of the contract is not disclosed.

Flexi trucks for the European market are designed and built at Narrow Aisle's UK manufacturing facility while the company has a Taiwanese partner that produces the trucks for the Americas and the Asia Pacific region. Over half of the components used in the Taiwanese forklift assembly are sourced from Europe, Maguire says.