Background
Agility is one of the world’s leading providers of integrated logistics. It is a publicly traded company with more than $4.3 billion in revenue and more than 22,000 employees in over 500 offices across 100 countries.
In Germany, the company organises the collection of auto parts from suppliers across Europe before consolidating deliveries at its modern logistics facility in Stuttgart. From here, goods are shipped overseas on-demand.
Agility is based in the Korntal-Münchingen area near Stuttgart, where car makers Mercedes Benz and Porsche have their headquarters.
The company has successfully grown in the past year, expanding its capacities at the Stuttgart facility.
How did Hyster Help?
- Agility’s challenge is quite rare, so the Hyster® dealer worked with Agility to consider a variety of possible solutions to support the increase in capacity
- Provides a fast and reliable service
- The reliable partnership helps to avoid production downtime
Equipment Summary
At first, Agility considered tackling its growth challenges either by equipping its existing fleet of electric trucks with extra batteries or by holding more trucks in reserve. However, many possible solutions were ruled out due to time constraints. Even recharging lithium-ion batteries, for example at lunchtime, would not have been enough. The most sensible solution was to change the fleet of electric forklift trucks to natural gas vehicles. The fleet now includes:
Benefits
- Reliability is essential. Fridays are especially busy and Agility as no free time at all - the trucks must run. They rely on them 100 per cent in order to ensure the car parts are ready to be shipped from Stuttgart to Brazil, Mexico, the United States and China
- The reliability of the Hyster® H1.8FT Fortens forklifts has assisted smooth operations at Agility
- Except for changing the gas bottle and conducting scheduled maintenance, trucks can run without interruption
- No additional reserve trucks had to be purchased, so today eight robust Hyster® LPG trucks have almost completely replaced the previous electric forklift fleet
- The total operating costs have been significantly reduced through the use of LPG forklifts. At first look, electric forklifts appeared to be cheaper, as LPG trucks come with higher maintenance costs and a 15 to 20 percent higher initial cost. However, as Agility would have needed extra batteries or additional electric trucks, when considering the cost against the required operating time and distance travelled, the LPG option actually provides a lower total cost of ownership
- Both the design and the comfort of the truck have also convinced the drivers
