Warehouse - United Kingdom Warehousing Association

44 Racking & ShelvingRegatta pickwithout a slipBITO Storage Systems has provided Regatta,the UK’s biggest outdoor clothing and footwearbrand, with 2000 bays of specially designedshelving to make picking individualpolythene-wrapped garments and footweareasier and to gain the approval of insurersRegatta is fast becoming a leadingbrand across Europe. On the back ofup to 30 per cent year on year growththe company decided to install new storageequipment into a larger premesis. It found theideal 400,000 sq ft distribution centre atPioneer Point, Ellesmere Port and moved induring September 2011, ready for the fit out.Optimising the order picking locations isvital in such a vast operation and Regattahad two key requirements. Firstly, the shelving,which would be integrated within theground level bays of the wide aisle palletracking system installed by Link 51, neededto allow effective sprinkler operation in theevent of a fire, thus meeting the approvalof Regatta’s insurers.The second goal was to retain stacks ofpolythene wrapped garments in a way thatwould make it easy to pick an individual garmentfrom the top of the pile, without causingthose below to slide out of the shelf and ontothe floor. Whenever a pile of such productsgets to about ten high, it starts to arc makingit easier for garments to slip out.Regatta had previously used bespoke,wire mesh baskets of about 500 squaremm x 800 mm to hold its stock for picking.While suiting its smaller warehouse operation,providing these baskets for 2000 locationsin the new DC would be both costlyand impractical and so, with an outlinedesign of what was required, the retailerturned to BITO Storage Systems to providea new solution that would turn its conceptinto a successful reality.Within eight weeks of receiving Regatta’senquiry, BITO provided four prototype designsfor a flexible, multiple-product picking unit,based on its galvanised shelving system.Each module of BITO’s simple solution isconfigured with four levels of 1300 mmwide x 1800 mm deep shelves. The module’swidth means that two of these units fitsnugly between the uprights of a typical 2.7m wide pallet rack bay.The 1300 mm wide shelf is split into twolocations by a divider, which has a 75mmwide vertical return on one side at the pickface. Together with a corresponding 75 mmvertical return running down the face of themodule’s solid side wall, this creates aretained location that holds a pile of individual,polythene wrapped garments securely,preventing them from sliding around duringpicking, while providing a gap that is wideenough to make an easy pick.The location on the other side of thedivider, without any returns, is fully open toaccess split case picking of stock, which isreplenished from the bulk pallets stored inthe pallet racking above.BITO also provided Regatta with variationson this shelving module to suit differentproduct lines. One of these has dividerswith double returns to give retained locationsin both halves of the 1300 mm shelf.Another version has no retainers at all onMay 2013www.ukwa.org.uk