Short term hire deals with crisis
June 1st 2006 DIY specialist Wickes was recently tested in a crisis situation when its Hemel Hempstead distribution centre was significantly damaged by the Buncefield fuel depot fire last December. Located just 500m from the depot, the site supplied over 1800 unique stock lines to 176 Wickes stores across the UK.
The sheer power of the blast caused damage to the exterior of the building, including smashed windows, meaning the site had to be evacuated for refurbishment.
Ross Eggleton, national general manager of Lloyd Fraser (Supply Chain) who operates the Wickes Intermediate Warehouses, said: "It was essential all the store deliveries were relocated to another depot immediately to avoid potentially leaving some stores under stocked. To carry this out, we needed a range of forklift trucks at very short notice to enable us to load and unload stock at our Nether Heyford site which we used to mitigate the impact as an alternative depot, ready for distribution.
"Over the last few years we have developed an excellent partnership with Finning Materials Handling and its Short Term Hire service was ideal for dealing with this problem. We put an emergency call into the company for four lift trucks late Sunday afternoon and by 6am the next morning they were onsite."
Increased demand on resources at the new site in Northampton, meant the company had to temporarily set up another relief depot in Daventry. Finning supplied a further six lift trucks and 10 hand pallet trucks to this site on the same day the order was placed. More articles from Briggs Equipment UK Ltd: | 
