The only way is up

Although they were able to expand laterally with their existing storage, they soon realised that upwards would be the way to go.

Marc Borland, logistics director at FTUK, said: “We realised that after the addition of new products for the next catalogue, space would become a problem and we needed to expand our 20,000 ft2 warehouse by a further 40,000ft2m.

FTUK came up with a strategy for greater growth and productivity: Smarter warehouse logistics, optimised storage, increased picking times, and a need to integrate their in-house back-office suite with smarter management software.

FTUK invested in automated storage solutions from Kardex Remstar. The investment of sixteen 12 metre high Shuttle XPs is said to have delivered a range of significant uplifts in productivity. The combination of the new technology and FTUKs own back office suite means that not only is auditing simpler but, thanks to the optimisation of the tours and the stock control, picking accuracy is greater than 99 % – based on an error rate of just 0.21 %. These advantages are further enhanced by quicker replenishment.