Unistrut purchasing manager Jason Burley; Mike Oseland from Briggs Equipment; Unistrut MD Carl Jones and Tracey Ng, senior buyer.

Materials handling specialist Briggs Equipment has won a new GBP500,000 (USD719,00) contract with Unistrut.

Part of Atkore International, Unistrut is a market-leading manufacturer and distributor of channel and prefabricated framing and cable management solutions for a wide variety of electrical, mechanical and industrial services applications.

At the core of the new materials handling fleet are eight Yale MR14 reach trucks. They have the capacity to lift to heights of up to 12.5 metres and a touch screen display allows operators to be in full control at all times.

Also included in the Unistrut deal are Combilift four-way articulated trucks, which are designed for long and bulky loads, along with Yale counterbalance machines and a Nilfisk industrial cleaner.

All of the new machines have been acquired on a five-year contract hire basis and Briggs Equipment will provide full service and maintenance support across the fleet.

Used primarily to unload and move steel coils throughout the production facility, the equipment will be deployed at Unistrut's headquarters in West Bromwich in the West Midlands.

Jason Burley, purchasing manager at Unistrut, says: "As a growing company, we need a strong materials handling partner and we look forward to working with Briggs to achieve our goals."

Unistrut has been particularly impressed with BE Portal, Briggs Equipment's interactive web-based asset management tool, which is designed to facilitate proactive fleet management. BE Portal provides total transparency and allows end-users to monitor performance, servicing and uptime of the entire fleet or even an individual truck. Using a tablet, laptop, smartphone or PC, it is also possible to submit truck hour meter readings, log a breakdown and track a job in a matter of seconds.