Wide aisle and drive-in racking for a mixed stock profile, Port Talbot.
A split layout: drive-in lanes for the bulk lines and wide aisle racking for everything else, specified from the stock profile rather than the floor area.
Distribution and logistics · Drive-in and adjustable pallet racking · Port Talbot
- Positions, before → after
- 1,870 pallet positionsBefore: 1,180 pallet positions
- Floor area recovered
- 27%
- Installation
- 8 days
- Downtime avoided
- Phased across three weekends
The challenge.
- A handful of products accounted for most of the pallets, but everything was stored in wide aisle racking one pallet deep.
- The aisles were paying for access to bulk lines that were only ever picked in quantity.
The constraints.
- The existing counterbalance fleet had to be kept.
- Mixed lines needed full selectivity, so a single system would not suit everything.
What we specified, and why.
Each line of the specification answers one part of the problem. Here is the reasoning, line by line.
- Drive-in racking for the high volume lines
- One product per lane with many pallets each. Aisles removed entirely within the block.
- Adjustable pallet racking for mixed lines
- Every pallet directly accessible from the aisle, the right choice for many SKUs with few pallets each.
- Rack protection on drive-in lane entries
- Trucks entering lanes cause most of the impact damage we repair.
Installation.
- The drive-in block was built first, then bulk stock was moved in to free floor for the wide aisle runs.
- Each phase was signed off with load notices before stock went back into it.
The outcome.
- Bulk lines now sit in lanes, and the wide aisle racking is reserved for the stock that needs selectivity.
- The layout leaves room for a future pallet shuttle conversion in the deep lanes.
They asked how many pallets of each product we hold before they drew a single aisle.
The system behind this project.
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Your building, measured. Your stock, counted.
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