Welcome to Narrow Aisle - Home of the Flexi Lift Truck

Return on Investment

There is a very rapid R.O.I. with the Flexi. It can be said that you are not really buying a forklift when you invest in a Flexi. Instead, you are acquiring real estate at a lower cost than it can be acquired otherwise. The additional real estate is available without an increase in real estate taxes, insurance, utilities or maintenance expenses that would accompany it’s acquisition by buying, building, renting or leasing more space.

Let’s assume that your warehouse space is 100,000 feet and you need more. If you’re using conventional trucks with 12’ aisles, you can shrink the aisles to 7’ by using a Flexi. For each 12’ aisle you gain 5’. Doing the math, 5/12 is 41.7% so you gain about 40% more useable space, in this case 40,000 more feet.   There are obviously variables, dimensions of the warehouse, locations of columns, etc. but 40% is a good approximation.

The same is the case if you’ve got reach trucks and 9.5’ aisles. Shrink them to 7’ and gain 2.5’ per 9.5’ aisle. 2.5/9.5 is 26.3%. Let’s round it to 25%.

Now let’s assign some approximate costs to conventional trucks, reach trucks and a typical Flexi. A new conventional electric truck will cost about $28,000, a reach truck $40,000 and a Flexi $55,000.

If you are now using 5 conventional trucks in your warehouse you’ll need 7 Flexi forklifts to service the 40% increase in area. You’d also need 7 conventional trucks to service that much more area as well. The difference in cost between a conventional electric and a Flexi is $27,000. Times 7 units, it costs $189,000 more than what would be spent on conventional trucks so the acquisition cost is $4.73 per foot for the 40,000 feet. With an easy 5 year economic life for a Flexi, that’s 95 cents per foot per year.

What would it cost to build, buy, lease or rent a foot of warehouse space for a year? How much would the taxes, insurance, utilities and maintenance increase? If it costs $3 per foot to rent or lease, add even 5% for taxes, insurance, utilities and maintenance and it costs $3.15 per foot per year.

So spend $630,000 to lease the space for 5 years ($3.15 per foot, times 40,000 feet, times 5 years = $630,000), or invest $189,000 more than conventional trucks for Flexi forklifts, and save $441,000 over the 5 years.

Using the same formula, 7 Flexi lifts would cost $105,000 more than 7 reach trucks for 25,000 more feet. That’s $4.20 per foot for 5 years, 84 cents per foot per year. So spend $393,750 ($4.20 per foot, times 25,000 feet, times 5 years = $393,750) to lease the space for 5 years, or invest $105,000 for Flexi and save $288,750.