KB Metal is a true entrepreneurial company. It was founded by Kennet Bager Nielsen in 1999 as a forge and machine shop in a barn in Northern Jutland. Since then, they have invested heavily in extensive machinery, with a CNC facility, advanced robots and a separate plastics department. Over 30 employees work in three-team shifts to produce precision equipment for industries such as the food industry.
The plastics department at KB Metal was previously located at a different address in Sæby, but now all activities are gathered at Energivej in the town’s industrial quarter. The metal company is continuously working on exploiting its machinery capacity for automatic saws, lathes, millers, measurement machines and other precision equipment which ensure a very high and uniform level of quality.
‘We are expanding the company so that we can meet our customers’ needs. We need to be flexible in our ability to switch our manufacturing to new production runs of metal or plastic items. We operate in a very competitive market where on-time delivery and very high product quality are essential. The new Linde machines signal the same high quality and have improved the flexibility of our internal logistics,’ says John Møller Jensen, Head of Sales at KB Metal.
The new Linde machines from N.C. Nielsen were put to use right away at KB Metal. The Linde E25/387 electric truck is used for such things as transporting raw materials, emptying containers with steel chips or loading trucks with finished products, while the three Linde L14 stackers are preferably used to move small pallets, stack pallets in high racks at the warehouse and generally to help keep the large indoor facility tidy.
‘Linde is without comparison the best truck brand for internal transport. I have a lot of good experience with Linde from a previous job. It was therefore natural to look in that direction. We were evaluating different solutions and were invited out to another company from Northern Jutland, where they let us test the Linde forklift truck. It was definitely something that helped convince us that we should go with this brand,’ says Allan Krog, Head of Warehouse and Logistics at KB Metal in Sæby.
N.C. Nielsen and Linde were selected on the basis of a screening process involving other truck brands, so KB Metal could assess important parameters such as technical quality, lifting capacity, price, ability to manoeuvre and, not least of all, the overall driving experience. The Linde brand thus drew the longest straw, and today it is an integrated part of the technology-intensive company.
‘We are proud that KB Metal has chosen us as a partner for their internal transport. It will be exciting to follow the company’s ongoing development journey, and we would very much like to contribute further with solutions that generate value and keep things moving at KB Metal. I am pleased that industrial production in North Jutland is progressing and that the Linde brand can support this positive development,’ states Bo Lindegaard from N.C. Nielsen.