Project Requirements

Kelkay Ltd. Case Study

Kelkay are a market leader in manufacture and a supplier to many gardening retailers for items such as paving flags, decorative aggregates, water features and many other landscaping materials.

Project Requirements

Due to the client manufacturing multiple pallets of the same products, they required a suitable system capable of utilising the space on site. This is where the ‘drive-in racking’ system is the most suitable system as this allows maximum use of the available space when storing multiple bulk pallets. The pallets sit directly onto rails and is guided towards the rear of the system and lowered onto the rail. Further pallets can be added creating a level of pallets back to back. In this instance, the system was 5 pallets deep. These systems are known as FILO (First In, Last Out) which refers to the first pallet being stored at height and not being able to be accessed until the lower pallets are removed. Therefore, this type of system is ideal for bulk storage of the same product in each lane.

Once the upper level is loaded, the lower rails can be utilised. This system is capable of holding 1,120 pallets due to being 4 blocks (two blocks back-to-back), 14 lines wide x 4 pallets high x 5 pallets deep. This creates a very efficient cube of pallet storage without block stacking the products on top of one another which can damage the lower pallets and be unstable.

Additional items such as low-level guide rails, back stops and steel column guards all form part of the protection package which will help reduce the chance of damage by the forklift truck during the loading/unloading process.

Challenges

Prior to the installation of the ‘drive-in racking’ system, the customer had a typical layout of Adjustable Pallet Racking (APR). This is ideal for the customer to access each pallet individually, but this was felt to be obsolete once the benefits of ‘drive-in racking’ were discussed.

Once the ‘drive-in racking’ materials were ordered and awaiting delivery, Warehouse Storage Solutions were also assigned the task of APR removal. The existing system was dismantled in a safe and methodical manner and the materials stored on site, for future use elsewhere within the business. Some of the materials were built elsewhere by Warehouse Storage Solutions to create a single run of APR along the building perimeter, further enhancing the customers storage space and access to some faster moving products.

The customer issued a timeline which Warehouse Storage Solutions planned the delivery and worked towards keeping the completion dates as expected.

Summary

The installation process ran smoothly, and the timeline issued by the customer was met.

Warehouse Storage Solutions have also been awarded another contract on this site for some external APR which is to be clad to protect the products from the elements.