Following the compulsory purchase of its Stratford facility by the London Development Agency (LDA) to enable the construction of the Olympic Park for the 2012 Olympic Games, Tyrone Textiles awarded the contract for a new storage solution to LINPAC Storage Systems. A family owned business established in 1978, Tyrone Textiles imports home furnishing textiles from Turkey and China for distribution to the UK retail trade. General Manager, Tony Moyes, takes up the story, “Hosting the Olympics is great news for the country but for us, as a business, it presented a real challenge.
“The company had moved premises once before due to the re-development of our original site at Tobacco Dock, so when the CPO was served at the beginning of 2006, we knew from past experience the extent of the task at hand. I was given the role of project manager for the CPO which meant a heavy work load talking with all the relevant bodies to ensure that we received the best deal and secured the best solution for relocation.
“Getting the correct compensation in a CPO is no easy matter. Because you are not allowed to profit from the move, you have to obtain competitive tenders for every element of the process, whether you intend to buy an existing unit or build a new one. Finding a suitable site for the operation was no easy matter and took a lot longer than we had anticipated – we only secured the site in early 2007 and had to vacate our existing facility in Stratford by the 1st July that same year.
“Talks with LINPAC began at Logistics Link in February 2006, although at that time we didn’t have a site to move to. Once we had details of the new site we put the tender for the storage solution out to five companies. Although not the lowest price, LINPAC’s tender was certainly the most professional and suitable solution. It was, however, a close run thing with another supplier who was importing racking from China.
“LINPAC won the business because their Milton Keynes manufacturing facility gave us the confidence that they could deliver within the tight time frames we had to live with,” explains Moyes.
At 11,600 sq. ft., the new premises offer nearly 20 percent less floor space than the old unit and so LINPAC had to be very clever in the use of space to achieve the equivalent storage and picking capacities. They accomplished this by including a rack supported three tier mezzanine to sit alongside the 250 pallet locations in the 7,000 sq. ft. adjustable pallet racking (APR) area for bulk storage.
Designed as the picking area, the three tier mezzanine provides 12,600 sq. ft. floor space and houses APR shelving with galvanised steel shelves. This affords 820 picking locations and is accessed by several methods, including stairs for the operatives. Fork lifts can store and retrieve stock via the pallet gates, one on each of the two floors above ground level, whilst a conveyor system allows manual operatives to easily store and retrieve goods from any floor.
“The new building has 10m eaves which enabled us to put a third level on the rack supported floors,” continues Moyes. “This has given us the space we require to handle the 1,800 SKUs we hold in the facility and our operational efficiency has improved even though we are working in a more confined area.
“Despite the very tight installation schedule LINPAC were able to hand over the site ready for us to move in on time. And this regardless of the fact that, through no fault of their own, they had to move all the bays of APR in the bulk section 10cm to the right after they had installed them. With the inevitable snagging list completed we are delighted with our new facility and extremely grateful to LINPAC for delivering the job on time and in budget,” concludes Moyes.
LINPAC Storage Systems
Tel: 01908 561222
Email: talk2us@linpacstorage.com
www.linpacstorage.com
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