Containerized warehouse beats drivers' hours problem

20th September 1968, Page 90

20th September 1968

Page 90

Page 90, 20th September 1968 — Containerized warehouse beats drivers' hours problem

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• Food Securities Ltd. has opened a new 55,000 sq. ft. Alliance warehouse at Granby Avenue, Garretts Green, Birmingham. The new depot, which is situated in Birmingham's eastern suburbs approximately 1 miles from both A45 and the motorway planned to link M6 to M1 in 1971, combines both cash and carry and delivery wholesaling activities The 40,000 sq. ft. delivered trade section of the warehouse serves over 200 Alliance voluntary group customers within a radius of 50 miles from Nottingham in the north to Cheltenham in the south and from Shrewsbury in the west to Northampton in the east.

Problems of MoT vehicle and driver regulations have been overcome by the use of Ford D800 vans specially designed for Alliance. Among the special features incorporated in the new vehicles are the body, which is mounted as far away from the cab as possible to reduce the weight over the front axle, and a hydraulic tail-lift for quick turn-around both at the depot and at customers' stores.

As the warehouse is based on the container system, each 7-ton vehicle can be fully loaded with 21 Claretainers in nine minutes instead of the usual three hours it used to take by hand loading and free stacking. This greatly-reduced loading and unloading time means that a 50-mile journey takes four hours less than previously and enables the new driver's hours regulations to be met without any reduction in service to customers.

In the warehouse loading and stacking is carried out by four Yale fork-lift trucks, while goods are assembled on eight Yale mechanized hand trucks each of which holds two Claretainers.