When Irish mouldings manufacturer Agnew & Co was rebuilding after a fire destroyed its production facility it took the opportunity to improve efficiency in the warehouse.

The family business, founded in 1962 and based in Redhills in Co Cavan, originally sold in bulk but two or three years prior to the fire it had branched out into DIY packs, stocking an impressive range of 430 products. These, along with the bulk items, were stacked on timber skids but the restructuring in the wake of the fire provided the opportunity to install
dedicated racking.

"We needed a racking system so we could keep all 430 products in stock without wasting the whole floor space," said co-owner and managing director Andrew Agnew.

The company undertook a lot of research before the final decision was made. "We looked at a lot of ads in the back of TTJ and went to a lot of people," said Mr Agnew. "It ended up that you could buy new racking as cheap, if not cheaper, than secondhand. You could buy second-hand cheaply, but by the time you’d paid for it to be taken down and reassembled it worked out pretty expensive – and there were no guarantees."

Visual appeal
The pristine appearance of new racking was also an important consideration.

"Second-hand racking is scraped and scrubbed and we wanted something that looked good," said Mr Agnew. "When you show people around you want to be proud of it because you’re promoting your wares. If you have nice product sitting on rusty, dirty racking, it’s not going to help."

After extensive research Agnew & Co opted for a system from German manufacturer Ohra. Within three months of the initial enquiry, Ohra had installed 200m of racking, 1.6m high and 1.2m deep. The racks are made from hotrolled steel and the cantilever arms move on impact which is said to reduce the potential of damage to product, rack, fork lift and staff.

Mr Agnew said the new racking had raised efficiency in the warehouse.

"We sell a lot of products – everything you want for internal second fix in your home – through our website, diytimberpacks.com, direct to end users in the UK and Ireland. We’re guaranteeing three-day delivery so we have to have all the products in stock and the new racking has made our picking for each order a lot simpler," he said.

Agnew & Co bought a small Hyster electric fork lift which is used for stacking the racks, at height, or unstacking a large quantity, but, generally, picking is done by hand.

"Before we had three or four items stacked on top of each other with skids; people were constantly having to lift off [products] with pallet trucks. Now everything can be lifted by hand," said Mr Agnew.

"Also, when you’re producing for stock, each rack is for a designated product so at a glance you can see what you’re low on or what you need to produce next."

And when an item is produced, he added, staff don’t have to spend time working out where to put it in the warehouse. "Everything has a home so it gives us far more structure," said Mr Agnew.

The more efficient, ordered layout has also freed up space for the protected loaded and unloading of HGVs, and it’s made it easier to ensure orders go out correctly.

"It’s helped the smooth running of our business and made it a lot simpler. With 430 products there’s a lot of stuff and in the past everyone had to know what each product was called; but this way they don’t – it’s just by numbers," said Mr Agnew.

Ohra’s installation of racking at French building materials supplier Doras was a project on a grand scale – 750 cantilever rack supports; 8,000 arms; and 2km of guide rail. Doras, which has more than 50 branches and around 800 employees, had moved its warehousing to a new 12,000m2 facility. The vast space could accommodate 22 aisles – 15 rows of 75m-long and 8m-high cantilever racking for goods up to 13m long; and 10 rows with 8.5mhigh pallet racks, also 75m long.

The installation was a "special challenge" for Ohra’s fitters as the size of the project required careful precision, said Bernard Lunven, Ohra’s sales manager for France. At CAB 56, one of France’s largest building materials purchasing groups, Ohra installed cantilever racking up to 14.5m high.

The first stage involved six 75m lengths of racking for wood-based panels and laminates, while phase two was eight aisles dedicated to timber rafters, door frames and blanks, gypsum board and insulation.

The two areas are serviced by fullyautomated Köttgen Largo stacker cranes.