Racking up business
April 1st 2008

Produced at a new manufacturing facility in Meisenheim, BITO's latest product – the PRO pallet racking system – means the company can now supply pallet racking to exactly meet specific customer requirements. Charlotte Stonestreet reports

Walking round BITO's new racking production facility in Meisenheim, Germany, it's easy to see why the company wants to shout about the state-of-the-art factory. Fully automated and with enviable environmental credentials, managing director, Detlef Ganz believes the £10,000m2 facility is the most modern storage equipment manufacturing set-up in in Europe. Representing a €16m investment, the highly flexible plant is used to produce BITO's new PRO pallet racking system.

Although BITO is no stranger to pallet racking having been a producer since the early '80s, the PRO system is much more flexible than the company's previous offering, which was available in a relatively limited choice of capacities. As a result, installations often had to be specified with a much higher capacity than the load to be stored. In contrast, the PRO Racking family features a larger number of standard uprights and beams with various capacities, enabling racking systems to be more closely configured to the exact capacity requirements of each individual application.

This means the amount of raw material used for each system can be kept to a minimum, resulting in cost and environmental benefits.

Less raw material, same capacity Thanks to its sophisticated design – which takes into account cross section surfaces, material characteristics and strength, stiffening corrugations and overall system rigidity with struts – the PRO system frame also inherently requires less raw material to provide the same load capacity.

The range features nine uprights (P1 to P9), with capacities from 6000 to 30,000kg, with 40,000kg possible with the use of specially designed strutting.

To provide maximum capacity using the minimum amount of material, the company has completely re-designed its beams for use in the PRO system. Whereas previously BITO's beams were constructed from interconnecting "C" profiles, which required a large amount of raw material, the specially designed Twin-Top beams used on the PRO system achieve the required strength using double thickness metal only at the top of the profile, rather than at the top and the bottom as was formerly the case. Six beam versions are available, in heights from 95 to 170mm, for loads of 600, 800 and 1000kg per pallet.

According to Edward Hutchison, managing director of BITO in the UK, the PRO system will mark a new era in the company being able to compete for pallet racking contracts not only terms of price, but also specification as the previous range could not always meet customer requirements, particularly in high bay situations.

Unlike many storage systems specialists, BITO manufactures both metal and plastic equipment. One of the latest products to come out of the company's plastics plant is the XL 800 x 600 container. Developed in response to the trend for smaller batches, the XL offers a space saving yet spacious alternative to 1200 x 1000 containers that are often used only to half capacity. Many versions are available to suit a huge range of applications, for example, a heavy duty model has a 200kg capacity and features fork entry shoes, while for safe transport the container is available with a hinged interlocking lid.

Optimum solution BITO's comprehensive product range, from the smallest plastic bin to huge cantilever racking systems, means that the company is able to offer an optimum solution for each customer – it is not tied to a particular type of solution because it only has a particular type of product. Generally speaking, BITO's business is divided into two types: Product, where around 5000 items are sold primarily via company catalogues and a website; and Project, which involves sophisticated, high value systems that require engineering input, project management and service. When competing for Project business, particularly if it is for an international client, BITO's position is strengthened by the fact that it has subsidiaries across Europe, as well as an additional metal production plant in India.

Of specific interest to UK customers, as H&SS goes to press, BITO is due to open its new UK headquarters. This site includes extensive training and conference facilities, as well a specially designed multi-level demo area where customers can bring their own products to try with the BITO range.

More articles from BITO Storage Systems Ltd: