Rushlift has secured a major three-year extension to its successful, long-running materials handling equipment contract with the UK and Ireland business of international building solutions and materials manufacturer and supplier Saint-Gobain. At the end of the three-year arrangement Saint-Gobain (UK&I) has the option to further extend the contract by two more years.

The new GBP45 million (USD54 million) deal continues an existing 10-year agreement with Rushlift to supply, manage and maintain Saint-Gobain’s materials handling fleet across its UK/Ireland sites including the Shetland Islands, Isle of Man and Jersey. 

In total, over 2,000 mixed-fleet assets will continue to be managed by Rushlift across some 850+ manufacturing and merchant sites operated by Saint-Gobain (UK&I) brands such as Jewson, JP Corry, British Gypsum, Rencol and many more.

As under the existing contract, Rushlift will supply, maintain and support a wide variety of forklifts of different manufacture, along with related industrial equipment – from counterbalance trucks, telehandlers and reach trucks to loading shovels, powered access platforms and floor cleaning equipment. All vehicles will be regularly serviced under a set maintenance regime, with fast breakdown response and support.

Ian Berrill, transport and supply chain solutions director for Saint-Gobain (UK&I), says: “Our customer service performance is absolutely vital to the success of our business and, for us, that means having a forklift truck fleet that we know we can depend upon. We need consistently high standards of maintenance and support across every site we run. Over the last 10 years, Rushlift has proved to be a reliable partner, maintaining and upgrading our fleet to match our service SLAs and working closely with us to help achieve our environmental targets. With this contract renewal, we have every confidence that Rushlift will continue to deliver the dedicated service and total support that we need to run our business.”