Manufacturer fits out new warehouse A-Z

The new 115,000 sq ft finished goods store provides capacity for up to 14,000 block stacked pallets and a further 2,500 pallet locations in a racking structure designed, supplied and installed by Jungheinrich UK.

RPC Blackburn’s logistics manager, Matt Bulcock, said: "We assessed a number of different lift truck options before settling on the Jungheinrich TFG range.

"We were impressed by the engineering quality, performance and reliability of the TFG trucks but the fact that Jungheinrich were also able to provide warehouse design CAD support, supply and install our racking, working with our building contractors to effect a timely solution to deliver the project was really valuable.”

The racking is served by a man-up VNA truck from Jungheinrich, which takes advantage of wire guidance technology and personnel protection system.

The forklift trucks in operation at the original off site warehouse required replacing and Jungheinrich also supplied seven new gas-powered counterbalanced trucks from its TFG range.

The TFG trucks feature hydrostatic drive engines. The engines allow the trucks to accelerate quickly and changes in direction are sleek and smooth, making the TFG models ideal for applications which involve a lot of shuttling work – such as RPC’s.

In addition, because hydrostatic drive technology has only a few mechanical components, the trucks are low maintenance and easier to service. As a result, truck downtime is kept to a minimum and whole life operating costs are low.

While the trucks’ engineering quality and low ongoing maintenance costs were attractive features to RPC, the main driver behind the company’s choice of Jungheinrich gas counterbalanced trucks was the savings in fuel costs they bring to the Blackburn operation. Jungheinrich was able to demonstrate RPC would be able to reduce its annual fuel costs.

At the original store, the ageing fleet of gas-powered forklifts had relied on bottled gas for their power, but the move to their own purpose-built facility allowed RPC to take advantage of the gas storage tanks that are in place at the site to refuel the trucks.