By opting for a combination of new and refurbished trucks at its new DC, automotive components supplier, First Line, is enjoying cost benefits -without sacrificing productivity or safety
First Line is an internationally renowned distributor of automotive components with almost 30 years’ experience in the auto aftermarket. The company distributes a range of First Line and Borg & Beck branded parts to motor factors throughout the UK and, increasingly, to customers overseas.
Parts – such as steering suspensions, cooling systems, wheel bearings, mounts and bushes – are sourced from manufacturers around the world, rebranded as First Line products and delivered to factors who, in turn, sell the parts on to garages and other vehicle repair centres.
Earlier this year, First Line consolidated its two warehouses on the outskirts of the Oxfordshire town of Bicester, into one purpose-built facility near to the original stores.
The new 130,000 sq ft unit offers sufficient space to cope with First Line’s anticipated growth strategy.
Over £9m of stock is held at the new DC in a mix of high bay pallet racking and small parts storage units.
Incoming loads arrive in containers which are de-stuffed using a fleet of Jungheinrich counterbalanced forklifts and powered pallet trucks.
Individual pallet loads are booked in using the company’s warehouse management system and put away initially within a racked consolidation area before being broken down and allocated a location within the bulk store or within the small parts picking section of the warehouse.
The high bay bulk store provides some 5,500 pallet locations. The storage cube is seven levels high and its 12 pick faces are divided by six aisles.
At its original two sites, First Line had operated a mixed fleet of rail-guided order picking trucks. During the planning stage of the move to its new site the company had initially planned to reconfigure the existing trucks to allow them to operate on a wire guided system.
“We found that rail guidance restricted access to the lower levels of the racking when we attempted to use pallet trucks in the aisles at our old sites and felt that switching to a wire guided system would offer greater flexibility,” says First Line’s Rob Currill.
Given the age of the existing trucks and the expense involved in making such a fundamental adjustment to the equipment’s operating process, Jungheinrich proposed replacing the trucks with purpose-built wire guided machines and, to minimize costs, suggested using a combination of new and refurbished equipment.
First Line agreed. “We realised that it was a completely false economy to attempt to reconfigure our existing trucks, and took Jungheinrich’s advice,” explains Rob Currill.
Jungheinrich supplied two EKX 410 Kombis (combination picker/stacker trucks) – one new and one refurbished.
The Jungheinrich EKX 410 electric powered Kombi truck can be used for stacking and retrieving pallets as well as for picking individual articles.
Jungheinrich UK Ltd
Tel: 01908 363100
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