Swish Building Products - based in Tamworth, Swish is one of the UK's leading manufacturers of PVC-u building profiles, pioneering many designs which have now become industry standard.

the brief - Swish had recently appointed Lane Group as their warehousing and distribution partner. One aspect of the agreement between the companies was that Lane should assist in improving customer service and reducing operational costs by re-designing Swish's existing warehousing facility. Expanding levels of production throughput and increases in product range were placing a strain on the storage capacity, resulting in difficult handling and stock control as well as causing a large proportion of goods to be stored outside. We were retained to identify, formulate and quantify storage and handling solutions to meet the clients' present and future requirements.

the approach - manufacturing output was around 28 tonnes per week of 5 metre and 6 metre long plastics sections packed into polythene sleeves and stacked in metal stillages. We examined the production batch sizes and run times to determine the optimum stillage size for production output with the stock profile broken down into picking and reserve stock, quantified in terms of space requirements. Storage methods were explored which maximised the use of footprint and headroom, whilst providing safe and efficient methods of replenishment and order picking. Consideration was also given to the short and long term requirements of Swish's business strategy.

We carried out a careful investigation of the existing in-house and contract operations which compared the existing contractors' performance with a theoretical cost generated by our distribution planning software (Dips). The next stage was to prepare an Invitation to Tender document (ITT) and carry out the tender process, including fielding enquiries, tender appraisal and advising on selection.

the result- the methods and equipment used for storage were rationalised to provide increased capacity and safer, faster operation.

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