Innovate & create
October 1st 2004

During recent years the storage market has rapidly been moving away from simply a commodity supply of racking components. More and more customers are looking for bespoke solutions that have been tailored for their individual applications. Simon Scott, account manager at LINPAC Storage Solutions takes up the story

'Creating leading edge storage solutions demands innovative thinking. As part of our thorough evaluation process we track projects at an early stage and have a well trained team of sales engineers who data analyse throughputs and pick-rates, stocking levels, picking methodology and distribution methods.

Each individual situation is scrutinised before recommendations are made and these may well include custom-built structural designs in order to achieve a specialist result.

‘When we become involved early on in a project we can ensure that buildings are designed to maximise space utilisation. At LINPAC we have a team of pre-sale consultants who have many years of industry experience. They keep abreast of current trends and make use of the latest design technology to develop bespoke applications for all warehousing, distribution and picking environments.

‘Once schemes have been developed further analysis takes place to make certain that the solutions are not only suitable for the operation but can also achieve the through-puts required. Our team then works closely with the client as part of the project team, maintaining contact with suppliers and allied industries at all times to ensure a smooth implementation. Using a racking supplier with UK based design and manufacturing has mission-critical advantages. Leadtimes are kept to a minimum and you receive a prompt reaction when, as frequently happens, the goalposts change.’

Eurodix

This is a classic example of designing a solution for an unusual slab situation prior to the project being ordered.

Fruit importer, Eurodix, selected drive-in racking from LINPAC to provide storage for over 29,000 boxes of apples in its cold store at Peterborough. However, due to geological circumstances in the vicinity of the cold store, the storage project presented an extremely demanding challenge. This dictated that, for extra safety, the racking had to be specially designed to withstand possible floor subsidence.

Independent engineers produced a design for a tower structure to run the length of the warehouse, installed over custom made piles in the floor. This was to act as a central brace for the racking.

Duncan Pickering of Eurodix was tasked with finding a storage supplier who could design, manufacture and install racking to meet these stringent requirements.

‘LINPAC could manufacture a storage solution to overcome our problem,’ said Pickering. ‘Their drive-in racking has been configured in such a way that it is bolted at the top to the central bracing structure.

This means that any floor movement is counteracted by the central towers on each side of the cold store. Despite these constraints, the racking was installed in record time for us and it is a great success.’

DM Plastics

This installation demonstrates how the LINPAC’s sales team clearly understood the customer’s objectives and implemented the latest developments available in the market to satisfy the requirement.

Based in Attleborough, DM Plastics is one of the UK’s leading wholesale distributors of building related products. Due to rapid expansion of the business further storage was required and it was Tim O’Hara, associate director of the company, who selected LINPAC to design and install the pushback racking.

‘Ideally we wanted to squeeze more capacity out of our existing warehouse facilities,’ said O’Hara. ‘LINPAC Storage Systems offered us an original concept using five deep pushback racking. As the majority of our products are fragile and crushable, we had previously been storing them only one pallet high. We’d considered traditional pallet racking but it required too much floor space for forklift truck operation. The five deep pushback racking is the perfect solution; it is competitively priced and it has doubled the pallet capacity of our warehouse.

‘The entire project was managed by LINPAC and it was hassle-free, an important factor given the pressures within our business. In fact they provided us with an effective ‘one-stop’ solution to our storage problem,’ O’Hara concluded.

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