Britvic juices up its materials handling
October 1st 2010 Barloworld Handling manages
Britvic's materials handling
fleet of over 200 units on 6
sites helping the soft drink provider
reduce cost and optimise efficiency.
"All drinks are palletised and
handled by the materials handling
fleet," explains Chris Jackson,
regional drive site manager,
responsible for Britvic's materials
handling fleet.
"Barloworld is a national partner
that provides dedicated local
support. The team has helped us
improve our understanding of how
we use the equipment and how we
can manage it more effectively to
improve performance and reduce
downtime," adds Jackson, explaining
that the fleet has been reduced as a
result.
As UK distribution partner for
Hyster, Barloworld manages more
than 200 Hyster units for Britvic
ranging from counterbalance forklift
trucks, to order pickers and pallet
trucks.
"Truck utilisation is now properly
managed so that we balance the
hours used across the fleet and
centrally manage life-time costs. This
has had a significant, positive impact
and our contracts with Barloworld
are now tuned accordingly," Jackson
explains.
Britvic's 275,000 sq ft NDC in
Lutterworth receives approximately
60% of all Britvic's finished
products, handling 470 vehicles a
day in peak periods. Pallets are
received by lorry and unloaded by 8
Hyster H4.0FT Advance+ LPG
forklifts with a double pallet
handling attachment.
Steve Martin, facilities manager at
Lutterworth explains how fleet
intelligence affects the operation.
"The Fortens trucks should work
70-80 hours a week in an intense,
short run, stop-start operation, but
we were finding that the hours were
incredibly high for some trucks but
not others, with associated penalties.
We now direct drivers to use specific
trucks for each shift saving money
and optimising the management of
scheduled maintenance."
Barloworld introduced its new
fleet management system to Britvic
in the summer of 2009 and uses a
telemetry device (BTD) to transmit
data from all Britvic's trucks directly
to Barloworld's back office
management system. The system
collects, analyses and reports truck
performance data. More articles from Barloworld Handling Limited: | 
