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10 - 1-ACRE PITCH by David Lowe, MInstTA

IF a warehousing company was able to start again from scratch how would it set out its new pitch? Where would the warehouse be sited and how big would it need to be?

Butlers Warehousing and Distribution Ltd. must have asked itself these questions when planning its new warehousing and distribution centre. Its decisions regarding the size and siting of the centre will read like a Utopian dream to those who are restricted to ancient, multistorey accommodation which appears purposely sited within easy reach of the narrowest of back streets and only a few minutes from the nearest traffic jam. One-way streets, no parking areas, narrow gates and low doorways are only some of the hazards to be negotiated when attempting to reach the inner confines of many warehouses, particularly the older established ones in our major cities and ports.

Butlers' scheme held no brief for any of these obstacles. It planned a large single-storey warehouse with good access to both the London conurbations and the major routes away from them. Its choice of site at Greenford. Middlesex, on the western fringe of the Greater London area, seems to be ideal in meeting these requirements. It is within easy reach of 7,900.000 consumers in the Greater London Area, has quick access to M1 motorway for the midlands and north, M4 for the west and the south west via A30, and A40 trunk road for Oxford, the west and west midlands. It is within a few minutes of British Railways' Willesden Freightliner terminal, London (Heathrow) Airport and the British Waterways depot at Brentford.

The warehouse erected by Crendon Concrete Co. of precast portal frames at a cost of over Lim covers 480.000 sq, ft., making it the largest single-storey public warehouse in Britain. There are actually two buildings, the first was completed in nine months—three months ahead of schedule—and the second in 11 months.

The concept of warehouses of these proportions is seen by Wharf Holdings Ltd. IButlers' parent company) as the only way to face the future in public warehousing. This is the trend of the trade in America and it will have to be the same here for anybody who hopes to have a future in the industry.

The Wharf Holdings Group is old-established and has traded in the Pool of London for 80 years. Its business through Butlers Wharf Ltd. and Colonial and Eagle Wharf Ltd. was mainly in warehousing tea, coffee, rubber and canned goods. Two of these commodities. tea and canned goods still form a major portion of the trade in the new warehouse. Butlers Warehousing and Distribution Ltd. is a new company formed within the group to set up and operate a national warehousing and distribution system. Half a dozen centres are planned to cover the country, the first two, Avonmouth 1300,000 sq. ft of covered accommodation) and now Greenford are in operation, and the others will follow later.

Enormous warehouses, however, do not make an efficient storage and distribution system—it is only when the warehouse is equipped with sophisticated handling machinery and managed by professional distribution men that the system comes to life. Distribution has been called one of the new management sciences and Butlers places emphasis on this aspect of its management. Mr. Mike Audland, general manager at Greenford. has considerable experience in the distribution management field. One only has to listen to his descriptions of the storage layout and handling methods to realize that he is one of a new breed—distribution scientist.

Equipment

Mechanical handling on a large scale is necessarily a major feature of the Greenford warehouse and a list of the equipment used will give some idea of the size of the operation:

15 Lansing Bagnall reach trucks:. 5 Lansing Bagnall counterbalanced trucks; 14 powered pallet trucks; 2 Hyster fork-lift trucks; 1 Copperloy Corporation mobile loading ramp: 1 Mercury tug and tow train: 1 Eccles four-seater electric car; 2 Powell Sprog electric scooters; a number of bicycles.

The electric car is for Mr. Audland's use, the electric scooters for the warehouse and distribution managers and the bicycles for warehouse foreman. The need for these is apparent when one realizes that the distance from the office to the far end of the warehouse is a quarter-mile, time-consuming if one has much walking to do within the buildings.

Two models of Lansing Bagnall fork-lift trucks are used, the FR ER 5, 4,5001b reach truck with 19ft triple mast and the FOER 9,4001b counterbalanced truck with 17ft 6in. lift. The reach trucks are fitted with twin drive for extra speed !again because of the size of the warehouse) and traction—the warehouse floors are on two levels and a 1 in 10 slope is incorporated—and are fitted with side shifts to enable them to work in 81t 6in. aisles.

Two of the counterbalanced trucks are fitted with SMC side-clamps enabling 12 tea chests to be picked up with ease. If required the clamps can be exchanged for forks in 10 minutes. Fourteen powered pallet trucks are in use and nine of these operating in the USAF centre are fitted with 48in. forks to fit the unusual American pallet sizes. Slimline forks are being fitted to the reach trucks operating in the centre for the same reason. Thyristor control is used on the Lansing Bagnall battery electric trucks because of the amount of dust in the tea warehouse.

The two Hyster 5.000Ib gas-powered twin-mast trucks are operated for container stuffing. The reason for their choice is twofold.

The first is that as containers are loaded and unloaded from floor level by means of the loading ramp which has a 1 in 6 gradient, the gaspowered trucks have more power for this sort of work. The second reason is that the maximum pallet weight allowed in ISO containers is 5,0001b, and to be able to lift this weight without overloading the container floor the gas truck is necessary. Battery electric trucks on this work would involve floor loadings by the truck's front axle in excess of the 12,000Ib container maximum.

A third Hyster truck is on order and this is to be fitted with Cascade turnover forks so that not only small cubes but very heavy items can be placed exactly inside a container without the need for manhandling. something a normal fork truck cannot do.

The loading ramp mentioned above is somewhat revolutionary in that it is the first of its kind in use in this country. Made by the Copperloy Corporation of America, it is mounted on pheumatic-tyred wheels which enables it to be easily moved by three men or towed behind the Mercury tug. The 36ft ramp can be raised or lowered by means of an incorporated hydraulic pump, and its deck is of mesh construction which gives a good grip for the trucks. It is ruggedly built to stringent American military specifications and can withstand floor loadings of up to 20,000lb. Such is the novelty of the ramp in this country that Butlers has received many inquiries about it following its appearance in one of the firm's advertisements.

With a warehouse operation of such a size the need often arises for large internal stock movements and the Mercury tug and tow train of platform trailers is used for this purpose.

Cleaning of the warehouse is carried out by means of a Tennant gasdriven floor sweeper. Overhead light inspections, repairs and move ment of stocks in the top bays of the racking is done by raising men in special cages which can be attached to the forks of reach trucks. These cages are approved by the Board of Trade for this work heealise they have an electric cut-out safety device which prevents the trucks being moved until the man in the cage signals, by pressing two buttons, when he is ready.

Maintenance of all warehouse equipment is carried out in one corner of the building where three men are employed full-time on this work.

A system used to impress upon staff the value of equipment and the need for its care and maintenance, is to have the price painted on it in a prominent position for all to see.

Storage Most companies' warehousing requirements vary from time to time, sometimes from day to day. Peak capacity might be two or three times the yearly average and to have its own warehouse or long-term hiring contracts means a company paying for peak capacity at all times.

The system at Greenford is different: customers need only pay for

the space used on a day-to-day basis, Longor short-term storage arrangements can he made either on a "space usedbasis or for fixed areas. Butlers already has a number of larged fixed-area contracts. principal among these being the 150,000 sq. ft. area used for a distribution centre by the United States Air Force for all non-perishable commodities for American Army, Navy and Air Force PX and troop issue. This involves some 5.000 tons-1.600 line items.

Order selection is done from a computerized picking sheet and assembled into fixed quantity pallet loads for daily distribution to all 14 American military bases in Britain; 1,100 rack squares are used in the centre for pallet storage with back-up pallets and random storage behind. A special pallet location system assists warehousemen with order picking.

Most of the stock arrives in road-borne containers direct from the port of entry. No Customs clearance is necessary under the Visiting Forces Regulations. Unfortunately Customs clearance is not so easy with other traffics. Mr. Audland is somewhat bitter about the Government's refusal to grant clearance facilities to inland warehouses which are not members of the Containerbase Federation.

Tea, as mentioned earlier, is one of Butlers main traffics. Much of this is brought from the docks by lighter up river to British Waterways' Brentford depot where it is off loaded and transported to Greenford. It is stored here until sold by auction and withdrawn when required by the purchasers.

Tea brought in for J. Lyons and Co., which constitutes a large portion of the stocks, comes in from various sources and is withdrawn as required by Lyons. Up to 160,000 chests are held in stock and daily outgoings average 2.000 chests. The Lansing Bagnall trucks with side clamps are used for moving most of this.

The other traffic stored. which is a reminder of the Butlers Wharf days, is canned goods. British Sales Ltd., distributor in this country of Del Monte and Lin-Can products. is at present occupying some 35,000 sq. ft. of space in the warehouse. The Del Monte products are also brought up river to Brentford or arrive by road-borne containers and the Lin-Can products arrive direct by road from the West Lynn factory. Orders of these products are collected by customers in their own vehicles or by hired transport.

Sainsbury and the British Aluminium Co. also have large stocks at Greenford, the former with several thousand tons of British and foreign-produced canned goods. British Aluminium is storing sheet aluminium in crates in a 10,000 sq. ft. area. Nestles has packed stock stored in the warehouse and Alka Seltzer, Ciro (canned goods}, Schweppes and United Biscuits are also big customers. Other products stored range from dismantled car-washing machines to cartons of jigsaw puzzles. A special security cage is contained within the warehouse for storing of valuable items and at the time of my visit a number of pieces of antique furniture were in stock.

Palletization is one of the most important requirements for efficient warehouse operation. Loads arriving unpalletized cause considerable delay whereas palletized loads are very quickly handled. On one occasion 29 palletized 40ft vehicle loads were offloaded and stowed away in one morning. No mean achievement even with the amount of equipment in the warehouse.

The close proximity of the Greenford site to London Airport is thought to be of importance, particularly with traffic to and from America. Many US companies use London Airport as their European warehouse because it has the best facilities from which to carry out distribution into Europe and Butlers sees its position as convenient to cash in on this situation.

Containers

Increasing numbers of containers are being handled at Greenford: some 60 per week on average are unloaded, including those of the United States Lines and other containers serving the USAF centre. Outward loadings are small at present but gradually building up. It is intended that extensive groupage facilities will be available when the Mafi Porta-Lift which is at present on order, and long overdue, is delivered. This machine will be able to handle 40ft 30-ton containers.

The OCL container consortium is interested in using Greenford for groupage facilities but is delaying until the Porta-Lift is available. Further .progress with the groupage service is being seriously hampered by the lack of this machine.

Mezario and Manifold Routier are two operators currently loading TIR vehicles and containers out of Greenford for Italy and France.

Distribution

Distribution by Butlers' own fleet of Ford D800 delivery vehicles— some BMC Lairds are on order—is carried out within the South Eastern area of England contained within a line drawn from Ipswich, west to Cambridge and Northampton then south to Oxford and Southampton. Although this service only started in January of this year approximately 150 tons per week is being delivered on a scheduled daily service. The delivery vehicles are rigid four-wheelers with van bodies fitted with four sliding doors each side and a roller shutter at the rear. Eight pallets can be carried on these vehicles and the advantage of side and rear loading is that either full loads for one drop can be easily loaded from the rear or split deliveries can be made without the driver having difficulties in getting at any particular part of his load if circumstances require him to deliver out of order.

Labour and adequate communications are important factors in any warehouse distribution system and Butlers is fortunate in being well provided with both.

An ICT 1901 computer installed in its City head office is linked directly to Greenford by Mohawk data transmission equipment. This combination makes possible immediate data and stock control analysis from a warehouse anywhere in the country.

Some 70 warehousemen are employed, supervised by eight foremen. and all are taught to use the lift trucks. Mr. Audland believing in all gladiators—no slaves. One of the staff has been on an RTITB instructor's course at Motec and this was thought to have been good value: the man concerned is now training other members of the warehouse staff. Mr. Audland is very interested in training and is a member of the RTITB commercial warehouse working party whose function it is to establish standards of training for warehousemen.

Rigorous interviews of prospective warehouse staff, lasting up to 1 +hr. are carried out to ensure that the high standards which Butlers looks for in its management is carried on relatively down the line. Only about 25 per cent of applicants for jobs are interviewed and of these only half are offered posts. Fortunately Butlers has a waiting list from which to make its selections.

To sit down and attempt to make a plan for a national storage and distribution system on a large scale is not to be undertaken lightly. To embark on a project of building a warehouse of the size of Greenford again is nothing less than a momentous task. Nevertheless, Butlers has taken these decisions, the Greenford warehouse is built and the distribution system is getting under way. Now the company's thoughts turn to other centres but for Mike Audland Greenford is in its infancy and his thoughts are concentrated on making it work. Distribution management, as I mentioned, is one of the new management sciences and a visit to Greenford is an opportunity to see an example of this science in operation. Any company which feels, for one reason or another, that its storage or distribution system leaves much to be desired would do well to see Greenford. For many companies this project will be a godsend. For Mike Audland it's a challenge—how to fill his 104 acre pitch.