Reducing aisle width

Purchasing Flexi trucks allowed a logistics specialist to expand its business without acquiring a new warehouse

The Fulfilment Store is a logistics specialist offering a broad range of storage, picking, packing, distribution and fulfilment solutions.

The company operates three sites comprising over 150,000 sq ft of warehousing space, from where it manages more than 26,000 stock lines.

Because efficient use of storage space is crucial to TFS, the company has switched to a flexible narrow aisle storage system at all three of its sites.

"Our clients only pay for the space they occupy so better utilisation of space means lower fulfilment costs for them," explains Graham Beales.

With its business expanding and the demands of its client base growing, TFS needed more space. The company initially considered acquiring another warehouse building to keep pace with its growth, but, after a comprehensive review of materials handling operations, it was decided that the best option was to reduce the aisle widths within TFS's existing stores and switch to a fleet of Flexi articulated narrow aisle forklift trucks at all three warehouses.

Before adopting its free-ranging narrow aisle storage system, TFS had operated 3.5 metre wide aisles served by a combination of reach and counterbalanced trucks throughout its operation.

The move to Flexis allowed TFS to reduce the width of its aisles from 3.5 to 2.0 metres, but has also enabled the company to cut the size of its forklift fleet: the work that was previously undertaken by a combination of counterbalanced and reach trucks is now carried out by a much smaller number of Flexis.

TFS's Flexi fleet is comprised of G4 models from the Flexi Narrow Aisle range.