Going global
August 1st 2006

Eight years after the company was formed by Martin McVicar and Robert Moffett, Combilift has officially opened a new €10m headquarters to fulfil growing demand and pave the way for continued dominance of the long load handling market

On Thursday 22th June, Irish Enterprise Minister, Micheal Martin, officially opened Combilift's new €10 million global headquarters in Monaghan, Ireland. It is anticipated that the investment will result in the creation of 100 new jobs over the next four years and see the company's turnover rise to €100m by 2010.

When Martin McVicar and Robert Moffett started Combilift in 1998, their aim was to create a niche product to handle long and bulky loads in confined spaces. The result was the Combilift – the first enginepowered, all 3 wheel drive 4-way (or multidirectional) forklift. Eight years and a comprehensive range of models later, Combilift is now reckoned to be the world leader in long load handling, exporting 94% of the units produced to over 45 countries around the world.

Paying tribute to the company, Minister Martin said: "Today's official opening of Combilift's new facility is tremendous news for Monaghan, Ireland and particularly the BMW region. The international successes of Combilift, and other Irish entrepreneurial companies, is a foundation stone of Ireland's remarkable economic performance over the last 10 years."

New models

With McVicar's engineering flair steering the company and around 9% of turnover being invested in R&D each year, the aim is to produce an innovative new model each year to meet the demands of particular types of application.

"We maintain a very close link between research and development and marketing so the two functions are always connected," said McVicar. "This means everything we do is driven by our customers' needs and we're always first to market with what we're offering." Showing the latest Combilift innovations, the opening ceremony of the new headquarters was also used to launch three new trucks to the market.

The TeleCombi was originally developed to meet the specific requirements of a major UK aluminium extrusion customer, Alcoa. Fitted with a 1 stage boom mounted on a moving carriage, the TeleCombi has a reach of 3m when carriage and boom are fully extended and can reach across the full width of a trailer at all lift heights.

This key feature enables the driver to offload from one side only, representing considerable savings on time and space.

The moving carriage eliminates the need for constant height adjustment associated with conventional boom machines working in confined spaces. The TeleCombi has a capacity of 3000kg at 500m load centres, and is available in both diesel and LPG versions.

Stand-on version

The new GT stand-on forklift is capable of working in even narrower aisles than a conventional Combilift as it features a stand-on rather than a ride-in cab. In common with all of the Combilift range, it is designed for flexible indoor and outdoor operation, and this model is available with 3 – 4.5t (imperial 6,000 – 10,000lbs) lift capacities.

A key option on the 4-wheel steer electric GT is an optical guiding system, which eliminates the need to install mechanical guide rails for operation within the very narrow aisles. Optical cameras mounted on the truck monitor a tape bonded in the centre of the aisle floor to enable automatic steering. A major benefit of the self steer system is the ease of operation for the driver, allowing the operator to concentrate on other functions.

The Semi – Rough Terrain C 5000L (C10,000L imperial) forklift is designed to handle long loads in narrow retail and wholesale yards, two examples include timber and steel. With larger solid pneumatic tyres, it is especially suited to unpaved yards and semi-rough terrain including snowy conditions and offers added suspension for more comfortable material handling for the operator. An extra 150mm in cab size allows for better operator ergonomics and comfort. This forklift is suited to outdoor and indoor environments.

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