BrightHouse, the leading rent-to-own retail chain, has improved safety and the carbon footprint of nine UK distribution centres by modifying its loading bays using specialist mobile pedestrian ramps, designed and manufactured by Thorworld Industries.
BrightHouse’s loading bay alterations have been implemented as part of a company-wide plan to heighten operator health and safety, while minimising packaging waste and reducing delivery vehicle emissions, as Rob Higgins, a key member of the BrightHouse operation team, explains: “BrightHouse was looking to enhance the safety of its loading bay processes, whilst simultaneously working towards improving its carbon footprint.
“We’d found that the practice of loading heavily packaged, shrink-wrapped pallets into distribution lorries using fork lifts carried potential for accidents, required additional internal lorry space for fork lift manoeuvre, and generated both pallet and plastic waste. So we wanted to look for ways to make the delivery process leaner and safer. “We found that if products could be loaded manually, we could eliminate the waste created by pallets and shrink wrap, as well as fit more products into the space previously consumed by pallets or required for safe fork lift manoeuvre.
“If this could be achieved, the loading operation would be far safer. It would also mean using less packaging which would increase lorry capacity and reduce the amount of deliveries required, making the company more efficient and helping to reduce its carbon footprint.”
To achieve their objectives, Rob and the team researched the loading bay options available and found that a mobile pedestrian “Walkramp” would provide an ideal, and flexible solution for the manual loading of vehicles; removing the risk of fork lift accidents, the need for additional packaging, and requirement for space to be allocated for safe fork lift truck operations.
Rob reports that: “From conducting an Internet search, we found that Thorworld Industries could design and manufacture a mobile “Walkramp” solution capable of fulfilling all our health and safety requirements, as well as helping to stream line operations.”
He goes on to explain how after initial discussions, Thorworld’s engineers assembled an initial ramp on a test site, enabling operatives to trial the “Walkramp” over a three-month period; with high tensile aluminum floorplate entry ramps, rear casters with deadman’s brakes, hydraulic hand-pumps and 1000mm handrails, the ramp proved successful in achieving the company’s goals.
The test ramp, with its additional safety features, enabled the BrightHouse team to trial its health and safety protocols, and ensure the loading function would work in practice. The trial also enabled the roll-out of the solution to other sites to be meticulously planned, which made the entire process simple and extremely efficient.
Ian Langan, Technical and Engineering Director at Thorworld Industries, has been pleased to learn that the BrightHouse trial was successful, the provisional apparatus was retained, and eight additional ramps were designed and manufactured to assemble within BrightHouse’s other UK distribution centres.
“With all nine ramps now fully installed and functioning, we’re delighted to hear that BrightHouse is realising its company-wide loading bay plan to advance safety, and reduce its carbon footprint,” Ian says. “Not only has health and safety improved, but BrightHouse has increased the cube volume of its delivery vehicles, enabling it to achieve more out of every vehicle trip; reducing mileage, and consequently, emissions. Furthermore, the company no longer has to use pallets and shrink wrap, removing the additional waste this generates, which is good news for BrightHouse, and the environment.”
THORWORLD INDUSTRIES
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