Interview: Martin McVicar, Co-Founder and CEO, Combilift

Innovative Solutions for Warehouse Management

Combilift’s space saving solutions captivate European clients, while improved safety allures US clients

How is Combilift developing its business services to bring additional value to clients?

We have an established warehouse design department with nine engineers exclusively working on aiding our clients to design and create more efficient warehouses, saving space. We offer this service free of charge. It allows us to work closely with our clients to optimize their utilization of their current or projected warehouses. This is a unique service rarely found elsewhere, proving the level of services offered by Irish companies. It allows Combilift to be an integral partner, and develop solutions that are optimum for our clients.

An example: One of our clients operates several lumber yard warehouses for long products throughout several locations across the US. Working together we were able to optimize their operations and allowed for a significant increase to their volume, while decreasing the number of warehouses they required. Combilift forklifts allowed them to maximize their smaller area, and thereby increase their efficiency, cutting costs and increasing their profitability at distribution sites. These benefits are also accomplished at pallet warehouses where clients are able to store more pallets in an area. Our warehouse design department brings real value to clients, and is a core pillar of our business.

We follow our existing customers as they expand globally, which has proved to be a cost effective way of opening new markets and scaling the business. Our route to market is to supply our products through local forklift dealerships that have service mechanics in the local market and can sell, maintain, service, and repair our forklifts.

The US market is consistently looking for innovative ways to improve safety in the workplace, and Combilift provides just that. Combilift has doubled its business in the US within the past three years, and we are confident we are again going to double our business in the US within the next three years. Therefore, since 2005, Combilift has a location in Queensbury, North Carolina to support the current expansion into the American market.

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