Close to home.

We could have literally carried the racking beam by beam and frame by frame across the river Don from our Kilnhurst base, when we completed a recent installation in Mexborough. Morphy Richards is a household name - a recent survey suggests that 95% of all homes in the UK possess at least one of the company’s products. Owned by the Glen Dimplex group, Morphy Richards is the UK’s leading supplier of small domestic appliances. Its products are available from most of the leading electrical goods retailers.

Mexborough is the company’s headquarters and distribution centre for its UK operations. Until recently the site also used to be a manufacturing facility for a range of irons and deep fat fryers. Consumer demand has seen a tremendous increase in the number of product lines, which Morphy Richards now offers. This meant that more and more storage space was required. The decision was taken, therefore, to cease manufacturing in Mexborough and convert the production facilities into additional warehousing.

A new 9000 pallet bulk storage warehouse has been created, providing capacity for one thousand different product lines. The operation is divided into two distinct phases. The morning shift is dedicated to goods receiving. On average, 500 pallet loads of product are received every day, this increases threefold at peak times, such as the run up Christmas. The pallets are put away in the racking and used to keep the ground floor pick faces replenished. The afternoon shift is responsible for picking products against individual customer orders. These are then moved into a customisation area, where they are prepared to specific customer requirements, prior to shipment.

In the bulk store, there are two single and eleven double runs of racking. It is designed to handle pallets 1200mm wide by 1000mm deep and a maximum height of 1300mm. Each run of racking consists of 22 bays, which have 2700mm clear entry. Pallets are stored on seven levels, with the top beam at 10.5 metres. Throughout the store the bottom bays are dedicated to order picking, with replenishment stock stored in the locations above. Reach trucks are used to manoeuvre pallets in the racking. The front uprights are all fitted with the sacrificial leg. Paul Blackman, the site’s Operations Manager, comments. “With such a busy operation, damage to the racking is inevitable, no matter how well trained our reach truck drivers are. Redirack’s sacrificial leg is an excellent accessory, enabling a damaged upright to be replaced in a matter of minutes.”

Also, we have recently installed a run of our new shelving product, Redishelf. It is used to store spare parts for Morphy Richards range of appliances in the after sales department. These items are an integral part of the Morphy Richards after sales service and are delivered to engineers as part of the company’s home fit programme. Redishelf is the ideal solution for this type of application. It is bolt free, exceptionally strong and very easy to assemble. All Redishelf components simply slot together to provide a very stable and rigid structure. The system is easy to install, modify and extend and provides good access to all the items in storage.

Whilst our factory is only a short distance from Morphy Richards, this was not the reason why we won these contracts. Paul Blackman explains. “Redirack are prepared to work with us to develop the optimum layout to suit our applications. Their project team always performs excellently. Whenever we present them with a problem, they come up with the best solution.” He says.