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CLICK HERE TO LAUNCH THE SEPTEMBER 15th DIGITAL EDITION OF WAREHOUSE & LOGISTICS NEWS MAGAZINE


Welcome to the September 15th Warehouse & Logistics News. As we go into autumn, the new season is a good time to ring the changes and look at doing things differently. Flexibility and innovation are an increasingly important element in industrial door and loading bay manufacturer Hörmann’s winning formula. There’s a lesson there for everyone in the industry to take the same approach.

As our front page story reveals, 2016 is set to be another recordbreaking year for Hörmann, with orders steadily increasing in new areas. Their recent installations include temperature controlled frozen and chilled operations, TNT’s new Swindon sortation hub, and a new loading bay for cassette trailers at DP World London Gateway Port and Logistics Park.

Using temporary buildings is one option for businesses to achieve flexibility. The weakening pound has improved the export potential for a wide range of UK industries and many manufacturing exporters and their suppliers are looking with new interest at cost-effective ways of expanding their capacity, including temporary buildings. Antony Hunt, MD of Smart- Space, makers and installers of temporary buildings, has reported a significant increase in sales enquiries, resulting from the Brexit referendum.

Two areas of your warehouse where you can achieve greater flexibility are Order Picking and Motive Power, which we look at in our features. In our Order Picking feature Apex Supply Chain Technologies share the seven deadly sins businesses must avoid to ensure their asset management programs are efficient and effective and Indigo Software suggest 10 indicators that it’s time to implement an effective WMS solution.

On the Motive Power front, adopting emerging technologies like hydrogen fuel cells, bio gas, lithium (Li) and iron-phosphate batteries have in some cases been trialed for up to 15 years but aren’t being taken up anything like as fast as communications technology. In our feature we hear from Fronius how their Perfect Charging system has dramatically reduced the energy consumption of Rhenus Contract Logistics AG’s Basel logistics centre.

Another area where we need more flexibility is in the recruitment policies of Britain’s truck fleets, following a recent FTA Twitter poll showing a rise in the number of younger women wanting to take up driving. Currently around 2,000 of the UK’s 315,000 registered truck drivers are female.

And finally, a fully refurbished Clark forklift truck could be yours for as little as £50! Berkshire-based forklift dealers Stacatruc are raffling this machine on Friday 14th October, with the target of raising £40,000 for Macmillan Cancer Support. Stacatruc are celebrating a successful trading period and want to give something back. See page 4 for more details.

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