Linde Material Handling is one of the biggest warehouse equipment and forklift manufacturers in the world, manufacturing electric mast forklift trucks, hydrostatic internal-combustion forklifts with cushion and pneumatic tyres, and more.
Read More (About Linde)Linde (pronounced “Linda”) Material Handling’s history stretches back to 1904 in Munich, Germany, but its tale in the modern lift industry begins half a century later. In 1955, it developed the Güldner Hydrocar transport truck with hydrostatic drive. This led to 1959’s Hubtrac diesel hydrostatic mast forklift, now credited as “the ancestor of all Linde forklift trucks.” The 2-tonne (2.2-U.S.-ton) Hubtrac debuted at the 1960 Hannover Fair, setting the company on a path to becoming one of the world’s biggest warehouse equipment and forklift manufacturers.
The Hubtrac’s replacement, the 314, arrived in 1968, and Linde showcased its first electric forklift truck at the Hanover Fair in 1971. The company bought Baker Material Handling Corporation, a United States-based industrial truck manufacturer, in 1977, and then purchased Fenwick, France’s largest forklift manufacturer, in 1984. The following year saw the premiere of the 351 diesel fork, which according to Linde would become “the most successful truck in Europe” over the next decade and a half.
In 1989, Linde acquired the inventor of the reach truck, the Lansing Bagnall company of Basingstoke. A 1993 joint venture with Xiamen Forklift Trucks, then China’s second-largest forklift truck manufacturer, eventually won the German company a massive share of the Chinese lift market. In 2006 Linde became part of the Kion Group AG, which it describes as “the world's second-largest manufacturer of industrial trucks and one of the leading suppliers of automation solutions for intralogistics.”
Linde presented hybrid and fuel cell prototypes three years later, and the latter type of truck became a standard offering in 2010. Automated industrial trucks from the company, the L-Matic L HP high-platform truck and P-Matic tractor, showed up in 2015. A year later, Roadster versions of Linde E20- to E35-series electric forklifts gave drivers remarkable visibility, as their overhead tilt cylinders obviated the need for traditional A-pillars.
Linde has developed a number of technologies designed to provide safety, sustainability, and comfort. Hydrogen fuel cell energy is one of these. Linde Load Management Advanced, a color-coded display with load weight sensing and safe operating parameters guidance, is another. 2014 saw the debut of the Linde Safety Pilot, an electronic assistance system to help the driver steer clear of hazards.
The Linde Safety Guard system, acquired along with the startup company Comnovo in 2017, uses wireless transmitters to alert operators that other trucks and/or pedestrians are approaching around corners, and from which direction. TruckSpot and BlueSpot lamps project light onto the floor ahead of a lift’s rearward or forward path to alert pedestrians. In turn, vibrational feedback can signal potential hazards to lift operators. Rotating cabs and operator workstations help drivers reverse a forklift safely without having to turn the head and flex the spine; Linde notes that driver comfort benefits productivity.
Today, Linde employs about 13,000 people and has more than 700 sales and service locations in more than 100 countries. It has factories in Germany, France, the Czech Republic, the U.S., and China.
Linde manufactures a tremendous variety of lifts, claiming 77 product series with up to 382 model variants total, as well as approximately 10,000 equipment options. Among these are, of course, electric mast forklift trucks and hydrostatic IC (internal combustion) forks with cushion or pneumatic tyres. They currently range in lifting capacity from 1,200 to 18,000 kilograms (2,600 to 40,000 pounds).
The company also makes pallet trucks, pedestrian stackers, reach trucks, warehouse trucks, VNA (very narrow-aisle) trucks, order pickers, tow tractors, platform trucks, swing reach trucks, container handlers, logistic trains, Matic automated forklift trucks, and explosion-proof trucks.
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