Shelter Systems is a manufacturer of wood structural building components located in Westminster, Maryland. Shelter Systems was founded by the Hikel family and a partner in 1976. The company is a family run business: Dwight Hikel is President and CEO, his wife Linda is the company's CFO and their son Joe serves as COO.

Starting small, Shelter System's original plant was just 14,000 square feet of production.

In the early 1980s the Hikels added an additional 18,000 square feet to their manufacturing facility and bought out their partner.

As the company became more successful, it was evident that they had again outgrown their existing plant and needed a new facility.

For the new plant, Dwight and Joe Hikel decided that they would design each manufacturing area from scratch.

They wanted to save space and reduce cycle times at every stage in the process from raw materials to finished product.

Having been introduced to the Combilift while visiting a BCMC show in 2002 and subsequently operating two machines at their old plant, Shelter Systems knew using a Combilift truck could help them with their goal.

Combilift manufactures a range of multidirectional forklift trucks that can operate in aisles as narrow as 8ft.

Using Combilift trucks meant that Shelter Systems reduced the square footage needed for the building, stored more products in the same footprint, reduced travel time and designed the building around 12ft aisles.

'The movement of material using the Combilift forklift truck was an integral part of the strategy in designing our state-of-the-art manufacturing facility,' said Joe Hikel.

'Not only does it allow us to store more product in the same plot, it reduces cycle times.

We like the fact that with the Combilift the load is lower to the ground and safer for our people.

Indeed, if we had used conventional forklifts we would have needed an additional 25,000 square feet.

This 20 percent saving on the size of the building was a significant reduction in construction costs'.

Today Shelter Systems operate a range of Combilift forklift trucks of various capacities at different stages throughout the truss plant.

Shelter Systems uses C6000 compact machines for transferring material from the saws to the assembly area.

The larger C10000L machines are used for a variety of tasks from offloading and storing raw material inside, loading the two lumber storage and retrieval system to moving trusses and product throughout the yard.

Shelter Systems also have a custom-cut engineered lumber line located on the east side of their building.

They use a C17300 Combilift to off-load their engineered lumber more safely in the yard.

It also allows them to store more engineered lumber in the same plot.

Commenting on the relationship with Shelter Systems Tommy Cadden, President of Combilift USA said, 'At Combilift, we are in the business of helping our customers become more successful.

We work with each customer on their unique requirements.

Reducing the distance Shelter System's forklift operators travelled reduced cycle times and resulted in huge time savings and productivity gains for the company'.

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