Behind the Scenes at Fenwick: How Logistics Supports Customer Satisfaction

Fenwick-Linde, part of the German Linde Material Handling group, is more than just a company name in France: it is the long-established player everyone thinks of when discussing material-handling trucks. Founded in 1926, the manufacturer now holds one-third of the French market, with more than 200,000 trucks in operation, 2,700 employees, and revenue of €800 million. Its 35,500 sq. m. site in Cenon-sur-Vienne (86) is dedicated to manufacturing three types of trucks (pallet trucks, double stackers, and tow tractors), representing 24 models across all capacity ranges out of the 150 offered in the brand’s catalog. It has a production capacity of 200 trucks a day, or 50,000 a year.

“At Fenwick, full control of our supply chain, from procurement to final delivery, enables us to ensure our customers have the availability they need, whether for trucks, parts, or the services of our technicians, says Jacques Arrighi, CEO of Fenwick-Linde. This proximity, made possible by our presence throughout the country, fosters a partnership in which we jointly develop solutions tailored to their challenges. By incorporating their expectations from the outset, we co-create responses that deliver tangible gains and sustainably support their performance.”

To meet the needs of its customers in logistics, retail, industry, and the food sector, not all trucks can be manufactured at the French site. “The others are therefore built at the five other plants in Europe: two in Germany (Linde MH’s headquarters are in Aschaffenburg, which has a 130,000 sq. m. production site), one in the Czech Republic, one in Poland, and another in Italy,” lists Anthony Vernizeau, Product Marketing & Energy Solutions Manager at Fenwick-Linde.

Given all the models available, the possible options, the different load capacities, the type of battery selected, and equipment designed to meet specific requirements, Fenwick has made the strategic choice to build to order. “We therefore hold no inventory, confirms Anthony Vernizeau. Once assembly is complete, the truck is shipped either directly to the customer or first routed through our Marly site (12,000 sq. m.) to add options not fitted at the factory. Only an order placed through one of our 75 branches, located throughout the country, triggers production.”

Not far from the Cenon-sur-Vienne plant, in Châtellerault, a 6,000 sq. m. outsourced platform stores 7,500 EU pallets of goods required for production. A truck is in fact made up of several parts: a chassis, a counterweight, forks, a cab and, except for pallet trucks, a mast. “Seventy percent of components are manufactured in-house,” says the Product Marketing Manager. Chassis and counterweights come from the brand’s foundries, located very close to its plants (a few kilometers away). As for steering and drive axles, they are manufactured by a specialized department at one of the brand’s plants in the Czech Republic before being sent to the assembly lines of the main plant in Germany. Masts, meanwhile, are made on site, close to the assembly line, at all the group’s plants. At the Aschaffenburg site, 44,000 are built each year. This leaves only the cab, made up of components supplied by the group’s 1,200 suppliers.

Manufacturing “traditional” trucks is not Fenwick-Linde’s only business. The manufacturer offers AGVs (Automatic Guided Vehicles) and AMRs (Autonomous Mobile Robots), as well as complete automation solutions through its internal and external partners. Land scarcity and the difficult economic climate, which heavily affects low-margin sectors such as logistics, are prompting companies to increasingly automate their processes to save space and improve efficiency. “Whatever the size of the project and the level of automation requested by the customer, we are the single point of contact, explains Anthony Vernizeau. Our teams audit, advise on, and oversee the implementation of all components, and also provide maintenance and repair. In addition to automated solutions, our local teams are supported by digital tools that enable us to offer customers a genuine advisory experience aimed at optimizing operating costs (energy, damage, availability, etc.) and delivering continuous improvement to ensure uncompromising operator safety. This is the case with our energy and safety audit solutions.”

Over the years, the brand has developed a network of nearly 1,400 technicians, ready to respond anywhere in France. Equipment is needed for these maintenance and repair operations. Stored across 10,000 sq. m. in Élancourt at Urban, one of the group’s subsidiaries, spare parts can be dispatched the same day for next-day delivery directly into the truck of the technician who requested them. “This can even take place overnight, because the trucks are geolocated and drivers can deposit the goods in them when the technician is absent,” Anthony Vernizeau explains.

Such maintenance is equally necessary for trucks on long-term rental contracts. “This market represents 60% of our business, says the Product Marketing Manager. Our trucks are rented for an average of five years, sometimes up to eight. After maintenance and repair, we offer them on the used-equipment market. Today, 15,000 are available on the European market.” With both a strained economic climate and the desire to reduce carbon footprints, the second-hand market has also found its place in the material-handling world.

Fenwick also intends to transform and optimize the production logistics for trucks built in Aschaffenburg. “We are currently carrying out a major industrial project at our headquarters, where we produce thermal and electric counterbalance trucks up to 8 metric tons on a large scale, announces Anthony Vernizeau. A new 40,000 sq. m. building for storing spare parts is expected to open in early 2027.” Located near the plant, it will be connected to it by a bridge equipped with a rail transport system, along with automated order picking and parts transfers to the production lines. “This project, called AB LOGO, for AschaffenBurg LOGistics Optimization, will enable us to significantly reduce truck movements, limit traffic entering and leaving our site, and optimize all our logistics flows and operations. We estimate that this will result in 10,000 fewer trucks operating between our plants, 300,000 fewer kilometers traveled, and savings of 400 metric tons of CO2 equivalent each year!”