With an enviable reputation spanning over 50 years, Translift have consistently strived to, and succeeded in, offering their customers innovative and groundbreaking solutions that will ultimately save time, space and money.
Translift SpaceMate
After covering the launch of the Translift SpaceMate in our October edition, I caught up with Simon Brown, Managing Director of Translift, to see how much interest there has been in the SpaceMate.
How has the market reacted since it was launched last September at IMHX?
Astonishingly! I can only compare it with the take-off of the Bendi which took ten long years to become established as an accepted product and now that it has. It has become a must have for all MHE suppliers. However, the amount of interest in SpaceMate is already equal to the level of activity of the Bendi in just a few months. I believe that the SpaceMate concept is easier to understand, people are seeing the SpaceMate and getting it straight away. Also, it has got a broader market appeal in new and surprising applications that are being brought to us daily. One big surprise has been the level of interest from other Forklift manufacturers who have a gap in their product line-up. The SpaceMate can now fulfil with one of their existing products. We are being inundated with requests to be dealers of the SpaceMate from all over the world. We also expect to be making some big announcements towards the end of the year on this subject.
Has the product changed since the prototype launch at the NEC?
Yes, while the product trials taught us a lot before the NEC launch. There is nothing like the real life experience gained from multiple site demos and different applications and operators. Recently, as a result, the SpaceMate has had a software upgrade which gives some enhanced control features, and there’s also a new laser array for easy alignment. As the SpaceMate operates on sequential hydraulics from one lever in the forklift cab, we’ve added an operators display to inform the operator of where it is in the sequence and what’s going to happen next. This gives the operator more control over normal day to day events that may occur mid sequential cycle even driver decisions.
Where do you see most opportunities for the SpaceMate – industry sectors, products, etc.?
As eluded to before, half of the requests are coming from within the materials handling industry; from dealers and manufacturers alike where they’ve been approached by a customer to save space and money and all other options are considered to be too expensive. Many of the applications have existing articulated trucks working along side counterbalance trucks, and where at peak periods they need a bit more capacity in the narrow aisle and their counterbalance machines are stood idle. The SpaceMate has enabled better use of the fleet as a whole allowing the counterbalance to add peak support to the articulated trucks in the narrow aisles. Other uses of the SpaceMate have been with users of traditional VNA equipment who need additional peak period cover for the VNA trucks and can solve this by fitting a SpaceMate to a Reach Truck or Man Up Orderpicker.
The other half of the SpaceMate applications are existing truck users who need to store more, or the same in less space, and find the SpaceMate as the easiest, simplest and most cost effective solution by fitting it to their existing wide aisle forklift to enable it to operate in 1800mm aisles.
When it comes to the true potential of the SpaceMate, we’re sure we have only just skimmed the surface so far, and as more customers become aware of its capabilities, we will see this new and exciting market sector grow quicker than any other in the MHE today.
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