Inspired Pet Nutrition (formerly known as Wagg Foods) – the UK’s largest independent producer of dry pet food – is investing a further £1.5 million at its facilities at Dalton Airfield in North Yorkshire. This amount is in addition to the new £7 million, 100,000 sq ft distribution centre which became operational in May.

Left to Right: George Page (Production Director) and David Wilson (Operations Manager) with the new central conveying system.
Left to Right: George Page (Production Director) and David Wilson (Operations Manager) with the new central conveying system.

A new central conveying system has been installed which will be eventually linked to all nine production lines. Instead of pallets having to be picked up manually at the end of each line and then moved by forklift truck to store, there will just be a single collection point with automated pallet handling. This removes the need for up to 80 (40 in and 40 out) forklift movements an hour around the factory and warehouse with associated safety benefits.

factory-production-15

Currently the factory produces around 40 pallet loads per hour but the new conveying system is able to handle up to 75 pallets per hour so it can easily cope with the planned increase in production.

The conveying system will also work in tandem with the new distribution centre – which currently has a capacity to store 11,500 pallet loads – by using a technique called ‘one shot loading’. The operation ensures the full pallets are automatically loaded on to a specially commissioned truck which delivers them to the new DC.

George Page, Operations Director at IPN, said: “Previously there was a lot of manual double handling required as pallets were collected from individual packing lines and stacked in the factory before being moved again for despatch. Now there is just a single collection point from where bagged goods are shunted on the Automatic Trailer Loading System straight to the new DC, where they are automatically unloaded directly into an automated racking system that prepares loads for despatch.”

Dan Reeves – Marketing Manager

Tel: 01845 578111

Email: danreeves@waggfoods.co.uk

www.waggfoods.com

Comments are closed.