Welcome to the April 1st edition of Warehouse & Logistics News. I hope each of you got the chance to re-charge your batteries over the Easter break and are ready for the second quarter of another busy year.
In case you missed it, March 8th was International Women’s Day yet women’s importance in warehousing, transport and logistics remains seriously underrated, with women accounting for only 20% of the logistics workforce and filling 10% of logistics managerial roles.
We hear in this issue from Rachel Whittaker of Zest, the Nottingham-based logistics consultancy, a champion of Women In Logistics who would like to use International Women’s Day to encourage more women to carve their own niche in the industry.
Easter is one of the annual seasonal demand peaks that involve supply chain businesses having to hire extra forklift trucks and other materials handling equipment and drivers to operate them. In our Fork Trucks feature we have some timely advice from Briggs Equipment on how to ease the pain of seasonal peaks and avoid costly repair bills. We also have news on the latest developments from the leading forklift suppliers including Crown, Linde, Mitsubishi, Yale and Cat Lift Trucks’ UK distributor Impact Handling.
In our Storage Solutions feature, we look at the factors to consider when planning a new warehouse. As our introduction points out, identifying the ideal layout and configuration for your racking and shelving needs to go hand in hand with selecting the right forklifts for your operation, hence a growing number of forklift suppliers are happy to advise on warehouse design and layout. We also look at the array of storage products available to warehouse professionals, including SSI Schaefer’s vertical storage systems and their range of over 2,200 plastic containers and Beaverswood’s Racksack solutions, designed to help you comply with the new waste regulations that came into force in 2015.
If you visited the recent LogiMAT show you probably saw warehouse automation expert Swisslog’s CycloneCarrier small items warehouse shuttle system, which was launched at the show.
As reported on our front cover Alnatura, the German organic foods supermarket chain has picked Swisslog’s new system for its distribution centre. Set to go into operation early next year, Swisslog’s CycloneCarrier will play a key role in centralising Alnatura’s supply structure for delivering low volume drugstore items to its 100-plus stores.
Finally, Warehouse & Logistics News is proud once again to be a media partner to Foodex, the prestigious event for the food and drink processing, packaging and logistics industries, taking place at the NEC from Monday 18 to Wednesday 20th April. Don’t miss our Foodex Preview in the April 15th issue.
Have a good month
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