Have your cake
December 1st 2008

Barloworld-supplied and maintained Hyster counterbalance and reach trucks are doing more than just the bread and butter work at Speedibake

Part of Allied Bakeries, the firm produces breads, cakes and pastries and produces a wide range of producat its Bradford site. The production operation runs 24 hours a day, 5 days a week with the materials handling fleet being used throughout the process, from delivery of ingredients through to dispatch of the finished product.

When ingredients arrive they are offloaded by a Hyster H2.0FTS-A, 2,000kg capacity, LPG powered lift truck, and put away in the ingredient store by an R1.4kg 1400kg capacity reach truck. When required, the ingredients are then taken from the store by the R1.4 and transported to the process area by a P1.6, 1600kg capacity, powered pallet truck.

Finished products are then taken to the palletising area where a J1.60XMT, 1,600kg capacity, electric counterbalance truck is used to place the pallets onto a conveyor that takes it through to the cold store.

Once in the cold store, which reaches - 23ºc, the products are put away in adjustable racking by R2.0HD, 2,000kg capacity Hyster reach trucks, which are fitted with cameras and defined colour monitors to help the operator place pallets up to 10.5m high precisely in the racking and minimise product damage. The trucks are also fitted with a CD/Radio player and heated seats to reduce fatigue and enhance comfort for the operators. The reach trucks feature the new heavy duty Hyster mast, which has minimal sway, minimising lateral deflection at height.

The finished products are then taken by the reach trucks to the dispatch area where they are loaded into Lorries by RP2.0N, 2,000kg capacity, ride-on powered pallet trucks. In a typical week over 8,000 pallets are handled in Bradford and 4,000 in Wakefield.

Barloworld Handling alo provides its fleet monitoring and Total Battery Management Services. Each forklift is fitted with a truck monitoring system that detects damage as a result of impact, records the number of hours used, the operator's identity (through controlled access systems) and the battery changing time.

The battery management system provides battery regeneration and uses air circulation to drastically reduce charging time, emissions and the necessity for top-ups.

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