Tait Marketing & Distribution Co Ltd - are importers and distributors of a wide range of fast moving consumer products and luxury goods throughout Taiwan.

the brief - rapid growth had exhausted their warehouse capacity in Taipei, and due to the high cost of land, after a two year search they were only able to acquire a small triangular site, bordered on one side by a river and on the others by industrial developments. To add to the challenge the new warehouse required earthquake and typhoon resistance and capacity was needed for temperature controlled, bonded and ambient storage.

the approach - once we were given the go ahead for the project we arranged for our consultants to complete a data collection visit to their operating sites. They noticed that the existing operations consisted predominantly of drive-in racking which was largely inappropriate for the wide range of products stored and the importance of first-in first-out. After the visit we created a data report and presented our findings to the directors to make sure the information we had collected was correct. We then calculated stock capacities in order to work out the maximum warehouse space requirement and our results identified an immediate requirement for 10,000 pallets locations growing to 15,000 over the next five years.

After the data collection and analysis stage was complete we produced a number of warehouse design options for the acquire site. It was decided that a high bay warehouse was required to maximise pallet capacity on the site, we then produced detailed designs involving narrow aisle and an automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS). These designs also provided a degree of security from theft, because the higher levels of stock would be very difficult to access. The local temperature was 38 degrees centigrade, with 95% humidity. Chocolate products required a maximum of 17 degrees, and 60% humidity. This was achieved by employing pallet-sized heat exchangers scattered in the lower five pallet levels, which lowered the temperature and humidity, and employed the sprinkler pumps and pipe racks to remove the moisture.

the result - the study resulted in the construction of a 30m high cladrack multi temperature warehouse which was resistant to earthquakes and typhoons. The warehouse incorporated four fully automated driverless fixed path cranes with chilled storage at lower level and the segregation of one aisle for Taiwan's first bonded warehouse. The fixed path cranes were supported 1.2 metres above ground level to protect from the threat of regular flooding. An overnight batch pick and sort provided two waves of 45 van loads per day into Taipei, with trunk vehicles serving the rest of the island.

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