How Pallet Live Racking Reduced Loading Times by up to 50%

Thistle Systems has enabled a major drinks company to transform its despatch area by installing a dedicated pallet live system to handle complex orders and in doing so has reduced its loading times by up to 50%.

The company had been loading wagons directly from its drive in racking system, however with increasing order levels and limited loading bays, the warehouse team were facing real pressure to fulfil the daily demand.

Thistle designed and installed a 20 lane pallet live system designed so that each lane constituted an individual wagon with 9 pallets deep and 3 pallets high.

The pallet live systems could be used by the night shift to pre-pick loads which featured a high number of different SKUs ready for the despatch team to load straight onto the wagons.

The system could also be replenished throughout the day with loads which are more complicated and therefore dramatically reduce wagon loading times whatever the complexity of the load.

Thistle Systems’ Managing Director, Mike Cairns explained, “The lengthy loading times was not only restricting the number of wagons which could be despatched in a day, the company was also incurring additional costs for wagons waiting time prior to and during loading.”

“By creating a dedicated despatch area for orders where there are a number of different products being pulled together for a wagon, we are dramatically reducing the travel times during the loading process.”

What we did

• Pallet Live System to accommodate 540 pallets
• 20 Lanes, each 9 pallets deep by 3 pallets high
• Wagon loading times reduced by up to 50%
• Costs of wagon standing times dramatically reduced