Madison, the UK’s leading distributor of bicycle parts and accessories has recently acquired an 80,000 sq/ft facility in Knowlhill, Milton Keynes, in line with continued growth and future plans for the business. Knowing they needed to maximise storage capacity, The Storage Equipment Centre Ltd (SEC) was tasked with designing, supplying and installing a suitable storage system for their vast range of products.
Madison approached SEC when a number of properties were in contention for acquisition. They needed a storage solution not only designed to the specifics of their operation and product range, but also the layout of the building. As a result of SEC’s continued schematic and feasibility support, Madison was able to choose the property in Knowlhill which features 12,000 sq/ft of office space. Madison selected to work with SEC not only because of their innovative design and approach but their ability to project manage from conception to completion.
The new property is to house the company’s range of bicycles, clothing and helmets. SEC first assessed the storage needs of the bicycles and scrutinized the manual handling of these. By re-orientating the bicycles on the individual pallets, it was soon realised significantly more bicycles could be stored. A very narrow aisle (VNA) system was used to further increase capacity within the warehouse, with a top pallet height of 8.5 metres. Total pallet position capacity is over 6,000 and the VNA system enables Madison to store various pallet sizes including bike, full and part.
Due to the way in which the bicycles would be handled on the pallets and racking layout, SEC worked closely and extensively with Madison’s existing mechanical handling equipment (MHE) supplier to ensure the VNA system would be fully compatible with the selected fork lift truck. This would prove to be imperative for Madison to ensure complete operational efficiency of the new facility.
Knowing Madison required the need to store thousands of different clothing and helmet lines, SEC set about designing a two-tier shelving structure. This was not only designed to the specifics of Madison’s operation, but also the building. The first floor of the structure needed to meet the floor level and new opening on the building’s structural mezzanine floor to enable access from the warehouse to ‘clean room’ and office area. The shelving structure was also designed around the buildings existing goods lift.
Due to the buildings existing layout, further office space could be utilised as a ‘clean room’ for the storage of bicycle and outdoor clothing. SEC designed a long span shelving system complete with steel decking throughout. This could be accessed from the two-tier shelving structure to enable the seamless picking of their vast product range.
Other works carried out by SEC included the relocation of an existing mezzanine floor creating an Operations Office below, as well as extensive office fit-out including staff tea-point and locker room.
The Storage Equipment Centre Ltd
Dean Kahl
Tel: 0870 241 0872
Comments are closed.