Partnership with Rise Hire

Official Announcement of Joint Relationship

Following the recent acquisition of Rise Hire Ltd by Lavendon Group plc, Versalift and Rise Hire have announced a formal agreement whereby both parties will work closely together to offer customers a wider choice of products and services. Rise Hire is now the official hire partner to Versalift, affording customers immediate availability of Versalift products on a hire basis – either as an evaluation tool, or as a temporary solution whilst an ordered vehicle is in build. Rise Hire, who are already the UK’s largest rental provider of van mounted access platforms, has recently confirmed a new order for a total of 52 additional Versalift units, comprising of 12.9m, 14.2m, and 16.5m platforms on both Ford Transits and Iveco Daily’s. The new vehicles will be made available for rental from Rise Hire Service Centre’s throughout the UK. Prior to placing this new order with Versalift, Nic Rae, the General Manager of Rise Hire, carried out a rigorous evaluation of all the van mounted access platforms on the market, in terms of both technical performance and the overall support that the various suppliers could provide. Steve Couling, the MD of Versalift said “we are delighted that Nic decided that our offer was the most complete package and this order confirms our ability to provide as wide a service and support to the market as possible.” Further to this, Nic Rae added ”As market leaders, we feel that we have a responsibility to ensure that we offer the best equipment and best service to our customers…we are convinced that the Versalift van mounted products are the right match for the rental market and we are delighted to have entered into the hire partner relationship with Versalift. Versalift and Rise Hire are also working together on enhancing the availability of operator safety training – and plan to launch a comprehensive range of IPAF training courses in the near future – all of which will be available to Versalift customers, through 32 training centre’s operated by Rise Hires’ sister company, Nationwide Access.

Vehicle Mounted Powered Access

An Overview for 2007

The UK market for vehicle mounted access platforms has certainly picked up in 2007 from the low that was 2006 and Versalift as the leading supplier to this market, supplying on average 270 units per year, has seen a greater number of enquiries from potential first time users than before, which is believed to be due to the concerns on working at height and duty of care responsibilities. With the introduction of Euro IV vehicles Versalift have seen an increase in vehicle kerb weights, seeing anything from 60kg and more. The result of which is that you have lost spare payload, particularly when you look at 3.5t GVW vehicles which would typically have 300kg spare all of a sudden you are looking at 240kg. Versalift’s approach to this was to undertake a fundamental re-design of their Eurotel range by introducing higher tensile steels to both the main boom and turret, together with a series of minor updates such as plastic covers instead of metal. All this attention to detail resulted in a significant saving of 60kg, effectively recovering the position previously enjoyed. A key issue that Euro IV vehicles have introduced is that they have also brought about the mass adoption of CanBus technology which from an aftermarket equipment point of view introduces a new set of opportunities to exploit and issues to resolve. For example it is much easier now to configure engine revs when the PTO is engaged, manipulate the central locking systems and introduce safety features for when boom is in operation and no ground crew. Issues which have been introduced mainly revolve around positioning of ancillary equipment by the manufacturer, such as ad blue tanks and exhaust systems, as they often seem to be just where you don’t want them. This year has seen a dramatic improvement in business over 2006, with Versalift seeing year to date sales growth of 52% on last year. Although a lot of the downturn last year was due to the introduction of Euro IV vehicles and non availability of Euro III, thus for many the worst year for quite some time. Previously 2004 was recorded as an excellent year, 2007 shows signs of beating this. It is harder to pin down why there are these fluctuations, over and above vehicle supply, although influencing factors have been the withdrawal of large sub contracts, directives such as ‘working at height’. As to the future, the mobility of a vehicle mounted access platform will always create a demand and future legislation, in particular relating to emissions will generate change. Access platform manufacturers will have to continue to develop platforms to fit on vehicles that will continue to offer less and less spare payload for a given GVW, as weight is taken up by alternative forms of fuel, equipment and form of motive power. The 60kg weight saving as offered by Versalift for a 13m machine is the first step that all manufacturers will need to take to satisfy the needs of the market, for both height and payload for a given vehicle.

Scottish & Southern

ET36NF on New Sprinter

The last four of twelve Versalift ET36NF access platforms mounted on the new Mercedes Sprinter for Scottish & Southern Energy (S&SE) have been released, with more vehicles in the pipe line including additional ET36NF machines with low voltage insulation complying with VDE.682.742 on vans destined for line work with S&SE. Additional features added to these machines from those supplied last year, has been the incorporation of additional safety markings in accordance with chapter 8. This series of builds for S&SE is one of the most comprehensive customer led specifications that we have built to date, with special features including load cell for extended outreach, narrow jacking, walk in bucket, jacks from bucket and restricted operation without jacks.

BTS Group

Buys the NEW Versalift Reverse Articulated machines

Having recently supplied the last of an order for six new Versalift platforms to BTS Group, seen here being handed over by our own Heath Thompson to Mr Billy Wells of BTS Group. The order from BTS comprised four off telescopic Eurotel ET38NF complete with 180o fly booms and two of the new VRA35NF reverse articulated machines, all mounted on to Isuzu NPR 6.2 tonnes GVW, Euro III, 3815mm wheelbase trucks. The truck was chosen as a substitute for a panel van on the basis of the additional practicalities of its operation and the volume of space offered by a workshop cabin. The ET38NF offers over 14m of working height and 7.5m of horizontal outreach, whilst the VRA35 offers a maximum working height of 13m and 7.5m of horizontal outreach, both with a 200kg SWL bucket.

SED 2007

A succesful show and Open House event

This year saw a departure for us, with a slightly smaller stand from last year and correspondingly smaller sales office, nee log cabin. Alongside this years event we also opened our doors back at the factory with a London Routemaster bus shuttling customers between both sites. This combination proved a huge success not only with our customers but local bus enthusiasts who were stopped in there tracks reaching for their cameras. In contrast to last year the queues to get in to Rockingham were manageable and as such we saw more visitors to the stand and more importantly some of which were genuine new enquiries and customers. On display @ Rockingham were an ET36NF mounted on a Ford Transit for BT Fleet, a ET38NF on Iveco Daily for Rise Hire, who are now part of the Lavendon Group and finally our budget VRA35NF reverse articulating model, low travel height. Whilst back at our open day we had a VOE36MHI for Scottish Power, TEL34NE on Vivaro as a demonstrator, ET38NF with under floor stabilisers, amongst others on display. We would like to thank all our visitors for coming to talk with us and look forward to seeing everyone again next year.

The Power of www.versalift.co.uk

Heath finds two friends at last

Regional Sales Manager, Heath Thompson received a strange text message recently asking if he was the son of Eric and used to live in Lancashire, "I first thought it was one of my friends, winding me up. I was waiting for the punch-line" said Heath. Heath had lost touch with two of his Aunts over twenty-years ago. "Karen and Nicola are more like sisters as we are the same age but because of a family argument, people getting married and moving away, we simply lost touch." So how did they get back in touch? They put his name in Google and it came up with the Versalift web site and Heath's contact details. "I was quite surprised, not only to hear from Nicola and Karen again but that they had seen my photograph and still wanted to get in touch! Don't look at it if there are children or small animals around as it'll scare them! I had been trying to find them for a number of years, so I am over the moon. We plan to meet up again in June. So I must thank Versalift for bringing us together again. Thank you”

Versalift Growth

New factory extension and employment opportunities

There will be a recruitment drive at Versalift this year following the decision to expand the workshop facilities by 50% at the site in Burton Latimer. The increased capacity will benefit both the production and service departments, with a doubling of bays devoted to the service department following the success of contracting in work for other makes of access equipment, together with the ever increasing volume of Versalift equipment in use throughout the UK. This forthcoming increase in capacity for general servicing, repair and refurbishment work on access platforms also means that Versalift are now looking for additional service engineers for both factory and road based roles within the company. As part of this expansion and investment in customer service and support, the first three of five new vans for the road based service engineers have been added to the fleet. These are the new model Ford Transit with the GLX pack, fitted with the 140ps engine to cope with the equipment fitted in the vehicles and the number of miles that our engineers manage to cover in a year.

Versalift Introduces Low Voltage Insulation

Versalift has developed a range of machines that are fully insulated for low voltage applications, to protect ALL those considered at risk

The Versalift 'LV Insulation kit' offers up to 3kv operational insulation of the whole platform for increased safety when working from height, near to live electrical equipment such as low voltage power lines and faulty street lamps. The full insulation of the boom is a critical part of this kit as it ensures the safety of both ground and aerial personnel should the boom come in to contact with a live object, as any current is not passed down the boom to the van or bucket and fully insulates the operator from risk. What's insulated? *Bucket, insulated from boom. *Lanyard connection, insulated from boom. *Boom, insulated from vehicle. *Controls, insulated from platform. The Versalift low voltage insulation protection system can be supplied on a range of platforms from the 11.6m ET32NF to the 23m VST6500NF. For further info, please call 01536 721010