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Advertisement feature Cover story
High-volume goods handling
system allows for growth
European Conveyor Systems has completed the installation of a
sophisticated high-volume goods handling system for order picking and
stock replenishment at a new distribution centre opened at Redditch,
Warwickshire, by Toolstation, a fast-growing supplier of building products
Mezzanine floor conveyor
transporting picked totes
to despatch marshalling
levels in the goods-in area, one taking
full totes to the mezzanine, the other
bringing empty totes back for re-use.
Around 2000 product lines are put
into stock every day.
Order picking is either into totes on
the mezzanine floor or into cages car-
ried by electric trucks on the ground
floor. From the mezzanine the totes are
carried to the marshalling and despatch
area via a decline belt and various pow-
ered and gravity conveyor sections.
All products are carried on the con-
veyors in 600 x 400 x 200mm Euro-totes
with maximum loads of 25kg, maxi-
mum throughput being 600 totes/hour.
T
oolstation’s ranges of tools, hard- within a wide aisle system. The whole Altogether, some 200 metres of con-
ware, fixings, accessories, work- system is barcoded throughout. veyor of various types have been
wear and electrical, heating and The conveyor system serves three installed, including belt, powered roller,
plumbing materials include more functions - goods-in, replenishment to
than 10,000 products sold through cat- storage and picking to despatch. In-
‘The ECS team has successfully delivered
alogues, the Internet and trade counter coming goods arriving on pallets are
outlets throughout the UK. checked by staff and put into totes that
the optimum conveyor solution for our
All customer orders and store replen- are either conveyed to the small parts
ishment were previously handled at the area on the mezzanine or to bulk stor- requirements efficiently and cost-effectively’
head office premises at Bridgwater, age. The conveyor system has two
Somerset. The company has now gravity roller and ECS’s zero-pressure
opened a 14,000m
2
warehouse at
Totes accumulating on zero-pressure
accumulation system, which allows
Redditch specifically to support its net-
conveyor before being diverted to
totes to queue without touching one
work of trade counter stores, which is
appropriate storage location
another and so are easier for staff
expanding at a rate of three outlets a to handle.
month on average at present. Toolstation’s operations director,
Adam Keates, praised the achievement
Conveyor system of ECS in providing the conveyor
Having previously designed and system on time and on budget. He
installed the conveyor system at comments: “The ECS team has suc-
Toolstation’s Bridgwater premises in cessfully delivered the optimum con-
2005, ECS was appointed for the project veyor solution for our requirements
at Redditch. This had to be designed to efficiently and cost-effectively.”
service some 14,000 rack locations, a
1500m
2
mezzanine floor and a shelving European Conveyor Systems
facility. Over 4,000 pallet locations are T: 0115 987 4363 Enter 400
in VNA and some 10,000 locations www.europeanconveyors.co.uk
8
JANUARY 2010 Materials Handling & Logistics
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