Seeing how the French dolt
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• Warehousing and distribution services in northern France provided considerable material of interest for members of the National Association of Warehouse Keepers who visited Lille, Amiens, Rouen and Paris last month as guests of the respective chambers of commerce and of the Federation Franeaise des Entrepots et Magasins Generaux Agrees par L 'Flat.
The party were told of extensive plans for the development of the port of Lille when they visited docks and warehouse facilities there; there is a plan for new links with Dunkirk, culminating in an extension of inland warehousing. Container facilities are available at the Lille warehousing area, and the port has very fast road links with Paris, Arras and the Belgian frontier.
A tour of Amiens centred around the new warehousing concept of Compagnie d'Entrepots et Magasins Gonoraut, which distributes food products and industrial
goods. All goods are pallet stored and the warehouses are in concrete with roof, exterior walls and fire walls in a material called Siporex; the concrete floors are covered by a layer of Solmetal. The CEMG concern is part of Eurostock Distribution, with headquarters in Paris, which has 287,000 sq m of warehousing floor space throughout France to serve a nationwide distribution facility.
Laminated wood covered with a fire-resistant polyester finish is used for the two principal warehouses of a chemical company visited at Rouen; conveyor-belt systems capable of handling 100 tons an hour are used for some of the bulk materials.
In the warehouses of the Cours de la Reine the British party was shown the shock recorders which are placed one in each truck when goods are consigned by French Railways, so that origins of damage can be precisely located and complex legal claims avoided. The Distristock Group created in 1970 is an amalgamation of four Rouen warehousing firms who store and distribute goods on behalf of producers, particularly in Normandy.
In Paris, where several large premises and systems were examined, there was considerable interest in new designs of prefabricated concrete warehouse.