Supplying Spanish supermarkets
December 1st 2008 Since its first successful
implementation of a
Rolldocking warehouse in
1999, designed to handle its
69 highest turnover items,
Spanish supermarket chain
Mercadona has
implemented three regional
warehouses in the same
way and a fourth is planned.
In total, there are about
20km of TGW pallet
conveyors operate in these
facilities.
For each of the 69
different articles there is one
accumulation roller
conveyor that handles up to
52 Euro-pallets (or 104 half
size pallets). At goods
receipt, the lorry driver is
directed to the door next to
the relevant conveyor.
The advantage is that the
large quantities allow the
delivery of truckloads of
each article. Using a hand
pallet truck or an electric
pallet truck, the driver loads
the pallets onto the reserved
roller conveyor. The run-in
roller table is at ground
level, with the conveyor's
mechanics installed in a
750mm deep pit to ensure
easy handling regardless of
which pallet truck is used.
Each of the 69 parallel
accumulation roller
conveyors made by TGW is
70m long, which provides
space for 52 pallets or 1.5
truckloads per article. The
conveyors have a roller pitch
of 175mm and use three
drives for the entire 70m
length. As they are sited in
parallel, up to six of them
can be driven by a single
drive. This means the entire
installation is driven by no
more than 39 drives. More articles from TGW Limited: | 
