3PL pushes on with 715000 sq ft Corby warehouse

With three floors of mezzanines, Europa Warehouse provides a range of services including e-commerce fulfilment. Europa Warehouse is part of the Europa Worldwide Group.

Despite the impact of Covid-19, Europa’s construction team has managed to drive through the project on schedule. The new site at Midlands Logistics Park will become Europa’s largest facility in the UK. 

Linde Material Handling UK joined Europa on the project in August 2019. Linde’s solutions division has helped design and kit out the warehouse. 

Linde MH UK supplied racking, forklifts, the sprinkler system, labels, barriers, safety mirrors and site management, with design from simulation programme STRATOS.

VNA trucks will be used to access the top locations and the reach trucks up to around 11500mm. As additional storage is required the wide aisles will be infilled giving the additional storage. The project provides overall capacity of 97,000 locations. 

Europa is also using Linde MH UK’s Navman navigation system which will interlink with Europa’s WMS system directly into the truck assisting the operator to achieve maximum pallet movements. Linde MH UK is also suppling the counterbalance and ride on powered pallet trucks with an initial fleet of 27 units.

Europa was particularly attracted by Linde MH UK’s lithium-ion trucks. The advantage being that battery changing is not required so reducing downtime in the operation, saving labour cost. In addition, the lithium-ion trucks contribute to improved sustainability as they generate lower levels of CO2 than forklifts with lead-acid batteries and diesel drives.

Mike Hawkins, head of Linde Logistics Solutions at Linde MH UK said: “I am very proud in the work the team has undertaken. This installation has been most challenging as we were due to start the racking installation on the day the UK was put into lockdown due to Covid-19. Working with all our partners, the Linde HSE team and the customer, risk and installation method statements have been reworked to ensure compliance with the Government guidelines. With new working practices in place the installation is heading towards completion. I really do look forward to seeing the completed project.”