Industry Focus Warehousing & Logistics
he Smart Slide shelving is able to present a large number of products at the pick face within the minimum possible foot- print. It also combines slow and fast moving products and offers the flexi- bility to change pick slot size to suit customer requirements.
Smart Slide is a perfect fit for Asda T
Asda’s Logistics Clothing Depot in Lymedale, Staffordshire, has installed Smart Slide shelving from BITO Storage Systems for the company’s ecommerce operation
The shelving has provided Asda’s depot with a 30% saving on floor space by offering a high number of pick slots in a dense storage system for slow and fast moving products. The shelving also provides a cost saving compared to a pallet racking-based design, incorporating a bespoke pick- ing solution. Richard Wood, operations manager for
George.com, the ecommerce opera- tions of George at Asda, said, “Our ecommerce operation needs a large number of pick spaces to hold the broad range of SKUs that we offer. We were challenged by the limited amount of space that we could allocate to the storage, yet we wanted to give our picking colleagues the maximum amount of locations that we could get in front of them.”
Dressed to impress
George came up with the concept of a shelving system that would work in a similar way to a sliding wardrobe. In other words, a bay of storage shelves at the front that a picker could slide to one side to gain access to pick slots within the shelving bays behind. Despite an extensive search, they could not find anything like this for the warehouse environment. Having previously worked with BITO, George asked if the Nuneaton- based storage solutions company could turn their idea into a reality. After several weeks of development BITO proposed a solution-based on its Boltless Shelving to create what it has now christened the ‘Smart Slide’ system. This combines fixed shelving at the rear and a slideable shelving system at the front, giving pickers access to the full width of each bay at the rear. Each 1,200mm wide x 600mm deep bay at the front is mounted on castors and comes complete with a roller mechanism, which allows it to slide easily and smoothly to one side, stops on the shelves and prevents them from
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impacting into each other. For added flexibility, the bay can be released from the roller track, which connects it to the fixed shelving at the rear by pulling down a handle on the mecha- nism. This allows the bays to be moved for replenishment purposes. The Smart Slide shelving is formed from BITO’s new perforated sprinkler shelf, together with mesh side and back walls. This means that in addition to being light in weight, the design adheres to insurers’ legal requirements, with regards to fire regulations.
The front bays of the Smart Slide are well suited for faster moving product. With four levels of shelves, a front bay module can hold 16 open front con- tainers on it and each shelf can sup- port up to 100kg.
Slower moving items are located in the fixed, 600mm deep shelving bays at the rear, which have ‘pigeon hole’ locations that can be easily adjusted for size simply by moving the dividers. To gain access to these rear locations, a picker simply slides the front bay to one side.
Trolley assistance To ensure that all of George’s pickers could easily access the top shelf, BITO designed an accompanying picking trolley, which has steps attached. After initial approval of a concept
Shoe sorter enters UK market W
arehouse solutions integrator Logistex
have partnered with VanRiet Material Handling Systems to bring VanRiet’s High Capacity Shoe Sorter to the UK Warehouse & Distribution market. The VanRiet Shoe
Sorters are well suited to solutions requiring very high throughput. The VanRiet High Capacity Shoe Sorter is available in Open and Closed Deck versions. The Closed Deck version ensures no dirt and dust will enter the sorting system, so maintenance and the chance of damage is minimal.
The configuration is designed to the specific handling needs of the customer. The sorters can be installed as a single addition or as part of a fully integrated automated solution. Once the product is installed Logistex has the capability to main- tain the equipment and keep it running. Logistex
logistex.com T: 01536 480 600
Above: the Smart Slide shelving is formed from BITO’s new perforated sprinkler shelf, together with mesh side and back walls
design, BITO installed a prototype at its Experience Centre, located at its Nuneaton HQ, for George to run trials. George brought along union stewards and a health and safety manager to the trials, which led to a number of refine- ments to the design. The very success- ful trials filled George with great confidence in the solution.
“The sheer density of storage pro- vided by the clever design of BITO’s Smart Slide gives us the ability to occupy the required footprint,” com- mented Wood. “It is simple and very effective yet did not exist anywhere else. The beauty of its design lies in its flexibility. For example, the location at the back is set-up with four slots but simply putting in a divider will create eight locations across the top row. This flexibility makes it ideal for dealing with peaks.”
BITO has also supplied George with
36 bespoke packaging desks, which are based on existing BITO products. Wood added, “The desk has been designed to be as ergonomically effi- cient as possible for the colleagues when working - everything is right in front of them and easily accessible. “The finished Smart Slide system far exceeds my expectations. When we set out on this project there was a lot of nervousness about getting it right because the shelving was new - both to us and to BITO. But we have enjoyed a very positive experience working with BITO because they understand the importance of cus- tomer relationship. They have gone out of their way to devise this bespoke solution and provide a pro- totype that we could try out, which has resulted in the right solution that fits our needs precisely and one that we are very pleased with.”
Enter 216
BITO Storage Systems
www.bito.co.uk T: 0247 638 8850
Enter 210 FEBRUARY 2014 Automation
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