Bendi walk away with the Innovation Award at Asda’s annual Store Proposition award ceremony for the Mini Bendi, which saves warehouse space, increases shop floor selling space and frees up congestion in the pedestrian pick area.
Over 400 guests attended the annual awards ceremony, which this year was held at the prestigious Royal Armouries in Leeds. The majority of the guests were primarily from the construction industry as the awards recognise outstanding achievement in reducing construction costs and coming up with innovative new ideas to assist Asda in building great stores and meeting their environmental obligations whilst also saving money.
The pedestrian operated Mini Bendi was internally nominated by ASDA for the Innovation Award based on the effect it has had on reducing construction costs whilst also solving work place transport challenges. The person responsible for the initial nomination was Simon Grass, Asda Back of House Development Manager, who commented:-
“We are absolutely delighted that Bendi have won the Innovation Award. Asda have had a significant involvement in the development of the Mini Bendi and we now have a truck that offers greater flexibility as well as efficiency and productivity benefits compared to other types of handling equipment”
As a business, Asda constantly look at ways to separate pedestrians and forklift trucks in order to minimize the risk of accidental collisions. However when segregated it could often lead to usage and productivity becoming inefficient, but as Simon explains, they no longer need to compromise:-
“The Mini Bendi allows us to significantly drive the use of the cube in our back of house areas as it can work in the narrow aisle format and maximise the usable height available, but due to its way of working, that allows us to have pedestrian pick within the same area permitting the stores to drop and fill effectively. This supports the reduction in the building footprint and thus improves the building’s selling efficiency as we can either build a smaller store or increase the selling sqft. It also allows us to lower the height of the building as we can now store as many pallets above ‘pedestrian pick’ in narrow aisles, as we could in the reach truck aisles at height, which is especially welcomed by the local planning authorities in certain areas of the country”
It is not just new stores that benefit from the Mini Bendi. When Asda review one of their more established stores within the estate the Mini Bendi can save significant space, time and money in the back of house areas as Asda can reduce the capital spend on re-aligning the warehouses to segregate colleagues and fork lifts. This is because the Mini Bendi can perform the same tasks as many of the existing Reach Trucks within the estate so Asda can simply swap them over and the area becomes pedestrian friendly.
For more information on the current Bendi range, visit www.bendi.co.uk
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