Leading online and home shopping retailer M and M Direct has selected Correx plastic picking bins from Kaysersberg Plastics for its new 220,000 sq ft purpose built warehouse and logistics centre in Hereford. M and M Direct offers top fashion, lifestyle and sports branded products at savings of up to 75% via online and catalogue sales, supplying customers directly from its two UK sites in Herefordshire.
The new bins are manufactured using Kaysersberg’s Correx twin wall polypropylene sheet, which is lightweight, long-lasting and impact resistant and can be cut, welded, curved or creased to meet precise customer specifications. The bins replace cardboard variants and were selected not only for their durability and versatility but also for their watertight construction, a vital factor following M and M Direct’s experiences during the severe flooding that occurred in Herefordshire in summer 2007.
The two months’ of rainfall that fell over the county on Friday 27th July 2007 led to £1.4m worth of stock being ruined by floodwater. As a result, the company’s insurers specified that a watertight picking bin should be used for the bottom of each of the racks in the new distribution centre.
M and M Direct carried out a number of trials with different products in order to find the best solution. Injection moulded bins were found to be too expensive and brittle. By comparison, the Correx bins proved to be both completely water resistant and also flexible and durable enough to withstand the constant ‘pushing and pulling’ that the bins have to endure as part of the busy daily picking process and which had led to the previous cardboard boxes having to be replaced regularly.
Further evidence of the Correx bins’ suitability was obtained after an extensive waterproof test, which involved M and M Direct’s finance director sitting inside a bin in a filled paddling pool to check for leaks.
“With annual sales in excess of £70 million, this is a very busy distribution centre and we need to work quickly and efficiently to maintain the high standards customers have to come to expect of us,” explains M and M Direct’s operations director Ryan Morris.
“The Correx picking bins are very flexible and easy to handle and therefore ideal for this purpose, as well as delivering a totally waterproof solution, although obviously we hope this will never have to be put to the test in conditions as bad as last year.”
Kaysersberg Plastics
Tel: 01452 316500
Email: sales@kayplast.com
www.kayplast.com
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