Online commerce is driving demand

Narrow Aisle Ltd, manufacturer of the Flexi range of articulated forklift trucks and other intralogistics solutions, is on target to achieve a year-on-year global sales uplift of over 20% across its range in 2017.

The company attributes the significant increase to growing sales in the Asian and American markets and the success of the Flexi StorMAX AC high-density storage system, which Narrow Aisle introduced in late 2015.

The StorMAX AC system offers customers the ability to maximise the cube by delivering a net 50% increase in pallets stored compared to storage systems served by traditional reach trucks. According to Narrow Aisle's commercial director, John Maguire, sites that have been reconfigured around the Flexi StorMAX system have achieved overall project payback in less than 12 months.

"The StorMAX system is particularly appealing to companies with growing online sales that need to adapt their existing pallet stores in order to create space for activities such as pick and pack, returns management and other fulfilment-based processes," says Maguire.

Looking ahead to 2018 and beyond, Maguire flags "a number of fresh and exciting developments in the pipeline".

According to Statista, retail e-commerce sales worldwide in 2016 amounted to USD1.86 trillion and e-retail revenues are projected to grow to USD4.48 trillion in 2021.