Racking and Shelving for Drinks Wholesaler

Optimised Warehouse Design for Drinks Wholesaler

Thistle Systems has enabled one of the UK’s leading drinks wholesalers to optimise their warehouse with a pallet racking and shelving solution which enabled them to cope with the 25% increase in SKUs which has been fuelled by the growth in craft beer, gin and premium wine.

Due to the nature of the business, the SKUs could vary from multiple pallets for fast moving items such as popular bottled beers to individual bottles of very slow-moving items such as vintage wine, worth hundreds of pounds.

Working closely the Operations Manager at the client’s Scottish distribution hub, Thistle developed a solution featuring shelving, picking levels and additional racking. This would enable them to take control of the key challenges they were facing whilst providing a foundation to increase capacity in the future.

Thistle designed and installed their Maxi Cube Shelving solution with 600mm shelves to provide an additional 384 linear metres of storage to accommodate those fast-moving cased items which had lower stock levels, such as craft gins. Storing these fast-moving items in a densely located area, Thistle were also able to considerably improve the picking speeds.

And, recognising the potential for growth in this market, Thistle designed the solution with upgraded uprights to enable the client to move to a two-tier shelving structure in the future to take advantage of the available height.

Thistle also redesigned and reconfigured the client’s existing racking to provide a combination of pallet positions to the upper beam levels with picking levels below featuring timber decking for slower moving items with larger stock.

The introduction of picking levels with timber decking provided an additional 130 linear metres of storage space which not only maximised capacity and improved picking speeds in this area of the warehouse but also dramatically increased the space utilisation in the warehouse.

Thistle also installed additional pallet racking, sourcing the same system as the existing products, to create an extra 96 pallet positions for their faster moving pallet items.

Thistle Systems’ Max the Cube approach delivered a solution which maximised capacity, improved picking speeds and optimised the layout of the warehouse to accommodate the additional SKUs.

Click here to find out more about our Maxi Cube Shelving solutions or contact us now to discuss your requirements.

What we did

• Designed and installed 384 linear metres of industrial shelving
• Reconfigured existing racking to create 130 linear metres of picking levels
• Designed and installed system to create additional 96 pallet positions
• Shelving designed to enable client to move to two tier shelving in future and double capacity
• Additional SKUs accommodated in existing floor space whilst improving picking times