Stop press Man from Stratford upon Avon just had Covid vaccination, afterwards went into his local pub for just a drink, landlord said "you are Bard" Much ado about nothing really.
What a morning today. Mrs Shed left early, made H cup of tea and a chicken sandwich for lunch (in fridge) will she remember, who knows. Little one fast asleep had to wake her up, Hair tie came out in the night so “tangle central”. Got her dressed, made breakfast while she opened advent calendar. Made apple squash for school, got her to test strength, brushed hair, cleaned teeth. Ready to leave for school. H (still working from home) says can’t get onto “MS teams” for my live lesson. Fortunately managed to push a few buttons and get it working.
Written an article for work a little while ago, so thought I’d post it for posterity.
NOT PALLETS R US – just a few things, but don’t panic Captain Mainwaring
Carpets, coffins, lamp posts, frocks, pipes, chipboard, steel, timber, lintels, mobile phones are just a few of the items that are often not stored on pallets.
Don’t panic Captain Mainwaring there is bespoke storage solutions for all of them.
Shall we just trundle down the road that is palletless storage? You want too, great, well let’s buckle up and go:
Carpets are generally sored in carpet racking (well there’s a surprise). This looks like pallet racking on steroids (see picture). Note the specialist fork lift “boom” attachment on the forklift. This isn’t for your staff to play a mechanized version of a knights jousting tournament but a very practical way of moving the carpets in and out of the racking safely and without damage.
Most modern carpets are manufactured from 4m wide rolls with a cardboard roll in the middle, the fork lift truck boom easily goes down the centre of the tube and allows the operator to pick the roll up without having to touch the carpet. They (in the old days I would have said he, but birds can do this now, and frequently do,) can then easily place the carpet on one of the levels of the rack.
The rack itself is constructed from heavy duty extra deep pallet racking with decking on each level.
Pipes, lamp posts, steel, lintels, coffins (yes I did say coffins) have one thing in common and that is they are generally in bundles and in long lengths. This is ideal for Cantilever racking. And guess who manufacturers and sells that, no not Marks and Spencer’s, but yes Warehouse Systems limited. (In true Blue Peter fashion see the photo of one we made earlier)
We design each rack to precisely accommodate your product range. We have over a century of combined experience in designing Cantilever racking so we make sure the system exactly meets your requirements. For example, it is often more cost effective to store 2 packs deep, but how do you keep them separated? Don’t tell them Pike, seriously it’d easy, we can design the rack with separators so the FLT can load / unload one pack at a time.
“Yes but, no but, yes but” I hear you say (I don’t actually but it makes a boring subject a little bit more interesting), what If I split the banding on the pack, all my copper pipes will fall on the floor, “we’re all doomed”. Again Don’t worry Private Fraser, we can put end stops on the “arms” to stop the tubes rolling off.
To paraphrase Nancy Kopman what happens if “It’s raining outside”. No worries private Godfrey, your sister Dolly’s new floor boards won’t get wet, we can supply everything from a simple canopy to a fully clad rack structure. (again as John Noaks would say here is a one we did earlier)
We could go on (and on, and on) about the variations we can make to cantilever racking, but unless you have access to an expresso machine you would probably fall asleep.
Jackets, Dresses, Trousers, in fact all Garments in general can be especially difficult to store efficiently. They can be delivered to the warehouse in boxes, on hanger or ever loose. We have a solution for that (you won’t be suppressed to know if you’ve managed to get this far).
We have just finished installing the two largest garment hanging storage and sortation systems in the country this year. This was designed alongside the customer using motorized and gravity trolley track systems and bulk storage. (Just look at the photos of one we did earlier as Helen Skelton would say.)
At the other end of the spectrum storage may be required for items too small for a pallet. The most cost effective solution may be long span shelving, (It looks like scaled down pallet racking) with chipboard decking. If we use our mobile phone issue above (storage off not 4 G coverage). We would store the boxes on the shelves.
Another alternative is short span (the clue is in the name), this use steel shelves and can accommodate dividers to sub divide each individual shelf. Going back to the phones, individual phone type can be stored in each compartment.
Both long span and short span can be used in multitiers to increase the volume of storage/ reduce the floor space required.
But I want to keep order picking 24 Hours a day and we will have to stop while the shelves are re-loaded. Calm down Corporal Jones, an alternative is carton live (and as Valerie Singleton would say here’s a photo of one we did earlier).
Pickers take items out of the totes on the shelf, when they are empty the tote is removed and the next fall tote slides down the lane into position. Another operative makes sure the lanes are kept full.
Well that’s my 800 odd words briefly (fortunately) discussing un palletable loads, and it’s time to stop at a sandwich van before leaving the road that is Palletless storage.
Watched Graham Norton last night, Michael J Fox interviewed, has raised over a Billion dollars for Parkinson’s research! Whist having it and a tumour on his back and other issues, makes you humble.
Got quote from builder, do we say yes?
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