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S wish Products' distribution operation is using Fleetloada curtainsided rigids made by Loughborough-based bodybuilder Southfield&

18th May 1995, Page 56
18th May 1995
Page 56
Page 57
Page 56, 18th May 1995 — S wish Products' distribution operation is using Fleetloada curtainsided rigids made by Loughborough-based bodybuilder Southfield&
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Keywords : Swish, Forklift Truck

Beck & Pollitzer, which carries out the nationwide distribution of products including curtain track, fascia board and window fittings for Swish, is using a fleet of 11 vehicles carrying pre-loaded steel stillages. Before introducing the curtainsiders, Swish's products were boxed and manually loaded through the rear of the original 15 vehicle fleet.

"The whole warehouse was geared up to load through the back doors of rigids which was time consuming, needed intensive labour and was slow. It could take three or four hours to load a single van and anything up to eight hours for a trailer," says Swish director of logistics Mike Hallett.

Vehicles, ranging from 7.5 to 34-tonners, can now be loaded in 20 minutes and the company has seen a "20% reduction in warehouse labour achieved through natural wastage and movement to another project in the manufacturing section," says Hallett.

"We felt that what we were doing was so slow and such an archaic way of working that improving mechanical handling tied to a new fleet of curtainsiders would, in one step, improve vehicle turnaround, reduce labour and give the additional benefit of improving customer service which was the ultimate goal," says Hallett.

The bodies, on Leyland Daf and ERF chassis, are built to Southfields' Openspan design which has no intermediate side or centre posts. Specially reinforced lightweight cant rails support the full weight of the roof. The stillages are either 2.5m or 5m long and are stacked two-high. A loading height of 2.4m was specified by Swish to accommodate the stillages.

Although the stillages are made of steel, no payload is lost, but some room is: "the turnround time more than compensates for that," says Hallett. The stillages are unloaded by forklift trucks at most customer bases but some are still unloaded manually via standard double rear doors.

Hallett says he did look at other options including draw bar trailers and demountable bodies, but the capital cost excluded them.

Tags

People: Mike Hallett
Locations: Loughborough

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