IN THE DOCK | COMBILIFT
that direction. I understand it on the solar/ battery side because there wasn’t an industry in the US that produces that. Even battery manufacturing for automobiles or storage systems, was all coming from Asia. There are virtually no solar panels made in the US. I understand trying to boost the industry here, but you can’t increase solar without getting the components and at the minute the bulk of that is manufactured outside the US. So Biden’s statement was slightly contradictory. Combilift manufactures everything in
Ireland and ships it to the US, we don’t expect that to change any time soon. We have a lot of production capacity at
the factory in Ireland and when the factory in Ireland reaches capacity, we’ll look at a second or additional production. But at the minute we’ve got no production in the US, we’ve got spare parts distribution in Greensboro, NC and we’ve got about 55 technicians here in the US, mostly based in , and a remote sales team around the US and Canada. The US is our biggest market. 30% of our machines come to the US. Other things people are talking about at the moment is the US elections. People are waiting to see what happens. It creates anxiety in some businesses, whereas other companies just proceed with their CapEx and their spend and continue to keep investing for the future. Others take an approach of wait and see based on who gets in, after the election in November when it’ll all be over, and everyone will get back to normal.
FUTURE INVESTMENTS Combilift invests 6-7% of its turnover in R&D, investments in new products and continues to work on autonomous products, electrifying new products. This year we launched the Combi-CLL Log Loader, and a new model of the Combi- CSS Container Slip-sheet. The Combi-CLL is a new model of the CSS, designed specifically to load logs designed for fast loading of freight containers with a maximum capacity of 30,000 kg this year. Those are in use on the East Coast with hardwood mills. R&D is our biggest investment, that’s
what keeps our business alive, listening to customers and understanding their challenges. If they come to us with a problem, we try to find a solution and invest our time and engineering in coming up with that solution. There are always some expansions at the factory and new equipment but nothing significant to
Combi-LC Blade designed in collaboration with Siemens Gamesa.
announce just yet,” said Short. The main challenges we find are
customers always want to increase their safety. They want to handle their loads in a safer way. Travelling with loads elevated is always a safety risk. So when you’re handling long awkward loads, which pass over vehicles or other products the easiest way to do it is to lift it. So, we’re always trying to find ways to handle that load as safely as possible as close to the ground with the best visibility for the operator. Our goal is to make the environment
safer for everyone else operating equipment and for low travelling. The walkie products inside manufacturing plants has increased safety a lot. So there’s no forklifts but they still have to move the products and they’re doing it with walkie or pedestrian products very safely with WRCS (Walkie Radio Communication Services) and Combi-PPT, Powered Pallet Truck for small to medium-sized warehouses and production facilities, with a lifting capacity up to 16,000kg and Combi-CS tiller arm which allows operators to operate very safely without being in a crush zone or increasing their visibility of the load when they’re travelling. Comment: All the models in the Pedestrian range are equipped with the Combilift tiller arm, so both the Combi- PPT and the Combi-CS have it. It could be a retail operation or a
manufacturing plant where they want to have less forklifts where there’s lots of pedestrians and we go in and design a product around that. It could be the Combi- CB 155E or we’ve had customers that asked for a 15,000 lbs multi directional forklift that
xvi | October 2024 | Dockside Lift & Move Supplement
still operates like a regular lift, but it’ll travel sidewards and handle long loads, whether it be steel, lumber, whatever it is you know a lot of them in Europe have been used on dockside and portside applications for stevedores and so on. It gives them that extra flexibility and added safety, when on portside, rather than elevating the long load travelling between unloading the ship or the vessel to unloading trailers. So it’s usually around safety is what we’re trying to increase. We’ll hopefully have a couple of product launches next year which we’re pretty excited about. We’re just in the final stages of testing. This year we’re really expanding our reach into certain industries. In Europe and around the world we’ve had a lot of success with the offshore wind industry, and we see that about to kick off in a real way here in the US where we’re starting to see real growth. And, based on our success in other parts of the world, that’s an industry where we feel we have a lot of good offerings with our products and existing customer base. So that’s a big area for us on the offshore wind when things get going there again. Otherwise, we’re just growing our
products, our biggest challenge is customer awareness. A lot of customers don’t know they have a problem, and they don’t know that Combilift is the solution for that problem of handling their loads. So we’re just getting out in front of customers and making sure they’re aware of what we do and what we can do for them, whether it’s optimising their warehouse or their material flow or storage yard or handling loads safer.’
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99
