We wanted a truck with a small footprint that could work in narrow confines, but we also needed enough capacity to cope with our heavier loads as well as electric power.
Crown Imperial manufactures high quality British furniture for kitchens, bedrooms and living areas. Headquartered in Herne Bay, it has recently overhauled and enhanced handling procedures by bringing in a number of Combilift models to replace counterbalance and reach trucks.
The raw materials and finished products that are moved around and stored at the production facility require versatile equipment, and Store Manager Bruce Whiting was keen to reduce the level of ride-on forklift traffic in areas where other personnel are present. He found the solution with Combi-WR4 multidirectional pedestrian stackers and a Combi-CBE4 multidirectional counterbalance design forklift.
Crown Imperial was the first company in the UK to take delivery of the 4t capacity electric powered Combi-CB – which ticked all the boxes for Bruce. “We wanted a truck with a small footprint that could work in narrow confines, but we also needed enough capacity to cope with our heavier loads as well as electric power.”
The two 1,450kg capacity Combi-WR4s tend to work inside, but are equally at home outside if required. They handle long profiles, pallets of components and packaging materials. A major feature of all Combilift’s pedestrian models is the unique patented multi-position tiller arm which enables push button rotation of the rear wheel parallel to the chassis and back. This offers excellent visibility of the surroundings, the forks and the load, and when working in narrow aisles it enables the operator to stand at the side of the unit rather than the rear, avoiding any crush risk.
The versatility and 4-way capability of the Combilifts have enabled better use of storage space for long products and have also brought further benefits, as Bruce points out. “Thanks to the Combi-WR4’s manouevrability we can put stock where we couldn’t previously and can now store all elements of a customer order in one place. With the old reach trucks we had to split orders and keep them in different locations. So it is now much quicker to locate a specific order, and if customers want to delay shipment there is no issue for us with lack of space.”
