Ridgeons awards £500k fleet contract to Linde Material Handling

Linde Material Handling has gained a significant order worth £500,000 with timber and builders merchant Ridgeons Ltd for the supply of a fleet of fork lift trucks and side-loaders, including a 10 year R&M arrangement.

This latest contract win marks the return of a previous customer to Linde as the company bought its first truck from the supplier 20 years ago.

Ridgeons has 23 sites across East Anglia, supplying its building products to a wide range of customers including general builders, property developers, farmers and DIY enthusiasts. Stocking a range of materials ranging from bricks and timber to kitchen and bathrooms plumbing, paints and fixtures, the company needs a fleet of reliable fork lift trucks to load its products on and off delivery vehicles as well as moving the products around each warehouse and serving collect customers.

As part of this latest contract, the company has purchased 12 engine counterbalance trucks, two electric counterbalance trucks and two sideloaders from Linde. All these new trucks have a 10-year full maintenance contract.

Commenting on the contract, Ewan Hunter, fleet manager at Ridgeons, said: “As a company that’s been operating for over 100 years, it is important that we use the best products and suppliers across our entire operation, particularly in this case, in our storage and distribution function, to ensure the smoothest possible delivery of our products to our customers.

“Our fleet of Linde IC counterbalance trucks enables us to lift pallets on and off our delivery vehicles easily while the S50 side loaders are capable of lifting long pallets of timber at almost six metres in length, on and off our vehicles. Although the trucks themselves are extremely reliable, durable and have low fuel consumption, we were also drawn to the excellent operator comfort features on each truck which has certainly helped our workforce become even more productive.”

Les Dobson, warehouse project manager at Linde, said: “We are very pleased that Ridgeons has decided to return to us and that our original trucks, ranging from 18 to 12 years old, are still going strong and delivering low running costs. The fact that Ridgeons have taken out the 10-year full maintenance contract with us proves their confidence in our products.

“We hope to build on this contract with Ridgeons over the next 10 years, and are happy to announce that we are about to sign another contract with the company which will involve Linde providing a service-only agreement, which they used to receive from their previous truck supplier, for 60 of their non-Linde trucks.”

Source : Peter MacLeod – SHD Logistics
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