Joloda have just finished installation of an automatic loading dock for ICI Akzonobel in Stowmarket, Ipswich. ICI Akznobel is the largest global paints and coatings company and a major producer of speciality chemicals. Their portfolio includes household names such as Dulux and Hammerite.
They decided they needed to improve and speed up their internal dispatch process and approached Joloda for an automatic loading system to meet this requirement.
The loading dock has just been installed at the factory to load the trailers for a 500m shuttle to their warehouse, where the trucks are off loaded with forklift trucks. 8 trailers were also supplied with the Trailerskate track, for the 10 shuttle journeys made per day.
The automatic loading system they have been supplied is a Trailerskate system which uses dock driven elevated skates, 15m long that pick up a pre-assembled load and in 3 minutes load into a tracked trailer, a load of up to 30 tonnes up to 26 pallets. When the full 26 pallets are accumulated on the dock then the skates are elevated by means of an airbag system located within the skate. The skates are then driven into the trailer by means of a drive chain. The trailers are fitted with 4 off simple steel tracks into which the skates run. Once the full load is in the trailer the air is extracted out of the skates and the load is then placed onto the trailer deck. The skates are then withdrawn onto the dock awaiting the next load.
The automatic loading dock at ICI, loads the trailers with 26 pallets in 3 minutes and as a result has dramatically speeded up their dispatch process from 30 minutes.
This system is already used daily by many branded companies such as Britvic, Unilever and Coca Cola.
As well as saving around 4 and a half hours a day on loading, they have saved money on forklift trucks, the loading area is now safer as there are not so many workers needed in the area and they have also greatly reduced their carbon footprint by using less forklifts.
The return on investment for ICI for this project is less than 12 months!
Joloda International
Karen Mc Bride
Tel: 0151 427 8954
Email: sales@joloda.com
Comments are closed.