TRANSPORT
ELECTRIFYING CIVILS & LINTELS
BMJ spoke to Allan Wright, managing director of Civils & Lintels about the specialist merchant’s move from diesel powered forklift trucks to lithium electric power forklifts.
BMJ: What is Civils & Lintels’ core business? Allan Wright: Civils & Lintels are national suppliers of construction materials to housebuilders, groundworkers, civil engineers and commercial contractors. We are the number one distributor of lintels in the UK, and a premier distributor of drainage & heavy side building materials, partnered with all major manufacturers, operating out of a strategic network of 19 depots nationwide.
BMJ: What instigated your move from diesel powered forklift trucks to lithium electric power forklifts? AW: At Civils & Lintels, we believe in innovation to add value for our clients and to improve working practices. We also know that our most important asset is our people, and it was our people that we turned to when we first contemplated moving from diesel powered forklift trucks to clean lithium electric power forklifts.
BMJ: Who did you choose to supply the new forklifts? AW: We considered several forklift suppliers and manufacturers, but one stood out as being most closely aligned to our objective and needs and was able to offer a machine of a similar design to our diesel chassis forklifts.
The brand that we chose was EP from Forktruck Solutions who offered all the benefits of clean lithium power at a similar price point to our diesel & gas-powered forklift offerings. Following extensive trials at one of our busiest depots, our operators found that the EP forklift lasted over a full day and a half working in the yard on a single charge! Brilliant!
BMJ: What were the benefits of switching to lithium? AW: We needed to have a solution in place which maximised productivity and reduced forklift truck downtime, and thanks to lithium power technology there are substantially less parts which means less things to go wrong, less breakdown & less servicing. Due to the nature of the loads and products we need to move, our forklift trucks can be subject to working in dusty environments for long periods of the day, however, we found that the switch to lithium meant that this was no longer an issue. With no engine or cooling system required in a lithium forklift truck, this meant no air filter, no oils and no fuel contamination - and also no fuel storage on site which was a major benefit. We found that our switch to lithium meant that our service & repair costs reduced considerably. The lithium solution appeared to tick many boxes, but there were many other unforeseen benefits
too, for example less vibration and fatigue for the operators after a day using forklifts, no noise from the engine, the operators reported that they could now hear what was going on around them in a way that they never could with diesel engine operation.
BMJ: How has the switch aligned with Civils & Lintels’ sustainability goals? AW: Alongside operational efficiency, here at Civils & Lintels, we are working hard to improve our sustainability credentials, driving sustainable and socially responsible business ethics and corporate governance are at the forefront of everything we do, and again this bore heavily in the decision to switch to clean lithium powered forklift trucks. We will save almost 10 tonnes of carbon emissions from every forklift truck each year of use, and with around 100 forklifts within the business this will soon add up. Climate change, undoubtedly, is rapidly escalating. While the operational efficiency of buildings has improved drastically over recent years, embodied carbon still presents a major concern to our pollution problem. Civils & Lintels are beginning to systematically analyse opportunities to reduce their carbon emissions, including their raw materials, packaging, transport & the energy used within the manufacturing process of the products we sell. The speed in which the industry is adopting lithium power has accelerated beyond prediction and is now affordable for any business. Following the governments decarbonisation plan and tightening emissions regulations, it makes ecological & economic sense to switch to cleaner technologies such as lithium. The government has already set in motion several different policies to pave the way to a carbon neutral future and Civils & Lintels are constantly looking to improve our carbon footprint and environmental impact and just one of the ways in which we are innovating is to embark on a program to make our MHE lithium, opting to provide a clean air environment for our clients, our people and all our stakeholders. BMJ
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www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net August 2022
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