Month: January 2020

Yale Europe Materials Handling is celebrating being selected as a finalist in the Ergonomics and Innovation categories of the Fork Lift Truck Association (FLTA) Awards for Excellence 2020.

Designed with specific customer challenges in mind, the Yale precision control tiller head is built around the operator’s needs. The ergonomic handle allows full command of the truck’s functionality, with the operator’s hands in a natural vertical position. With the tiller arm fully upright, the truck can be operated in the most restricted space for maximum manoeuvrability, and yet still provide great operator visibility.

“We believe that it’s important to design our products around the people who will be using them in order to maximise operator productivity. Delivery drivers face challenges every day getting product from trailer to store and one of the main challenges is space – this was at the forefront of the design process for the Yale precision control tiller head,” said Iain Friar, Yale Brand Marketing Manager.

With the tiller arm upright, the operator has full command of the truck’s functionality, allowing for maximum manoeuvrability and optimum visibility. Auxiliary traction activation, traction interlock, composite housing for controls, fork lift and lower buttons, and a throttle switch for speed control give the tiller head an innovative handle.

The ‘Archie’s awards ceremony takes place at The Hilton Metropole at the NEC Birmingham on 21st March 2020, where the winners are presented with a trophy statuette of Archimedes.

Yale has achieved previous success at the well-respected ceremony, having won awards in the environment, safety, and ergonomics categories.

B&B Attachments, the UK’s leading specialists in the design and manufacture of bespoke forklift truck attachment solutions, will exhibit its K320, PowerMount and FBH05 Beam Grab attachments from its BlockMaster range on stand 40 at the UK Concrete Show (March 25-26, 2020, NEC Birmingham).

Celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, The UK Concrete Show has grown to become Europe’s largest specialist concrete event and is attended by key buyers and industry professionals from all over the world. This year visitors will see both live in-hall and outside demos, as well as experiencing everything that is new in the world of concrete from the top names in the industry.

This year B&B Attachments will exhibit its popular K320 forklift attachment which is part of the sought after BlockMaster range, made uniquely for specialist applications within the construction industry.

The K320 attachment is rated at 3200kg and is ideally suited to yard work and loading. The attachment offers excellent durability, performance and maximum productivity when handling up to two block packs or multiple kerb loads at a time.
The PowerMount quick release system shown together with the K320 attachment, enables a quick change from one hydraulic attachment to another in just 90 seconds, without the need for an engineer or any tools. It allows one forklift truck to use several attachments, providing the best possible utilisation of a forklift fleet.

B&B Attachments will also exhibit its FBG05 Beam Grab. This attachment has been manufactured by B&B to assist in the unloading process of floor beams. Designed to fit crane delivery vehicles, the beam grab can lift anything from two to six beams of varying sizes in one single lift.

The B&B team of specialist staff will be on the stand, offering years of industry knowledge and advice to help you solve any material handling task. Visit B&B’s stand 40 to find out how efficient material handling can transform your operation. Book an appointment today with one of B&B’s specialists by e-mailing in**@**************ts.com

Third party multi-temperature warehousing and logistics network, Norish, has introduced lithium-ion battery-powered Flexi articulated VNA truck technology at its cold store facility at Brierley Hill in the West Midlands, UK. The company, which has used Flexi VNA trucks throughout its business for some 15 years, opted to replace the lead-acid battery-driven Flexis that had been in operation at the facility with new models from the Flexi LiTHiON range.

The fully integrated Flexi LiTHiON’s lithium-ion power system requires zero maintenance and no battery changing to deliver extended multi-shift availability – making the Flexi LiTHiON the ideal solution for modern temperature-controlled stores. One of the key benefits that the switch to lithium-ion technology has brought to Norish is the fact that the Flexi LiTHiON machines do not require battery changes – the lithium-ion power source is recharged while the operator is taking one of his or her regular breaks from the cold store. This not only maximizes truck uptime but significantly reduces the requirement for Norish to allocate valuable floor space within the building to a dedicated spare battery charging and changing bay. When it comes to battery management the Flexi LiTHiON monitors the battery function constantly and reports the battery status in real time, while water topping-up is not required, which means that the type of health and safety issues that can arise if liquids are spilt during the traditional lead-acid battery charging process, are eliminated.

State of the art collaborative robotic – or ‘cobotic’ ¬- digital technology controls all of the Flexi LiTHiON’s drive, hydraulic and power-steering functions and ensures that the trucks are able to perform at full power across multi-shifts at Norish’s Brierley Hill store with no drop off in performance levels. In fact, the Flexi LiTHiON’s combination of fully integrated ‘cobotic’ digital motor technology and lithium-ion power is so effective when it comes to eliminating wasted power, that truck availability is typically increased by 25 per cent every day.

Delivery vehicles containing a wide mix of meats, sea food and raw ingredients from the UK and around the world arrive at Norish’s Brierley Hill site throughout the day and are unloaded within sealed loading docks by powered pallet trucks before being collated within a marshaling area.
Full pallet loads are then collected by the Flexi LiTHiON trucks and delivered directly to the allocated cold store chamber where they are put away within a high-density very narrow aisle pallet rack system.

The pallet racking is controlled using a warehouse management system (WMS) that provides both pre-allocated locations for every product received at the store but also directs newly arrived chilled materials to one of the three ‘blast freeze’ zones in the store.
“Within any type of cold storage facility, it is essential to get maximum product density: the more pallets we can get into the warehouse the lower our operating and energy costs are,” says Stewart Lloyd, national engineering director at Norish. “The combination of high density VNA pallet racks and Flexi LiTHiON trucks allows us to maximise storage density and get great individual pallet accessibility,” he adds.

HCEE (Hyundai Construction Equipment Europe) has named Sungwoo (SW) Lee as the new Managing Director with immediate effect. With over 20 years of service at the Hyundai group, SW Lee brings a longstanding international sales career to Europe. SW Lee replaces mister J.H. Chun who will return to Korea where he will lead the international marketing team of HCE (Hyundai Construction Equipment).

Mr. Lee brings with him good knowledge of the European set-up. He worked as a Construction Equipment Sales Manager in the European subsidiary from 2005 till 2009, so has a good understanding of the dealer network, the European market requirements, and culture.

He will focus on a proactive sales strategy. By further growing the European dealer network, setting-up a key account management structure, and an advanced market-oriented product strategy, he plans to lead HCEE into gaining an increasingly profitable market share in the coming years.