Month: February 2020

UK manufacturer B&B Attachments is to exhibit at the BIG Show in Oman (30th March – 1st April 2020 at the Oman Convention and Exhibition Centre, Muscat).

B&B Attachments will exhibit together with its official dealer for the region, GOTRADE of the Gorica group. B&B specialise in the design and manufacture of bespoke specialist forklift truck attachments, which includes the BlockMaster range; comprising of a collection of specialist clamps for the building products industry.

“You only need to look at the exhibition calendar in the Middle East to see the size and scope of opportunities in the region. The Middle Eastern construction market provides B&B with an abundance of new prospects as the BlockMaster range becomes more well-known within the construction industry,” said Mike Barton, Managing Director at B&B Attachments.

The BIG Show (Builders International Gathering) is an annual international exhibition that caters to the building and construction industry in Oman, the Middle East and global markets.

Lödige Industries is providing automated storage and buffer systems for BMW Group’s new automobile manufacturing plant in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. The project is designed to be a turnkey solution including all relevant systems like racking, stacker cranes, automation and building services such as ventilation, lighting and firefighting.

Lödige’s solutions are necessary as body shop, paint shop and final assembly are located in separate buildings, all being fed from a central high-bay storage facility. Buildings and storage are connected by two bridges, equipped with conveyors from Lödige. This allows for accurate in-sequence and in-time delivery of car bodies for painting and assembly despite differences in throughput rates. The fully automated central car body storage facility equipped with three stacker cranes can store and retrieve 180 cars an hour with overall space for close to 500 cars.

The use of its versatile intralogistics technology at BMW Group’s latest factory underlines the significance of material-handling solutions by Lödige Industries for modern production processes in the automotive industry. The storage and buffer systems support the automation solutions that the BMW Group facility uses to set new standards in vehicle manufacturing. Furthermore, the automated storage and buffer technologies by Lödige Industries are part of a genuinely sustainable production at the Mexican factory.

Lödige Industries has been delivering material handling solutions to the BMW Group for over 30 years.

Interroll has rebranded its Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Denmark as the Commercial Belt Drives & Conveyors, effective March 1, 2020. The decision highlights that Interroll’s overall portfolio is very suitable for both supermarket and retail applications.

Today, six out of ten checkout stands in supermarkets and retail stores worldwide are powered by Interroll. Making a significant contribution to this success has been the Interroll Center of Excellence in Hvidovre, Copenhagen, Denmark, which to date has concentrated on drum motors and cassettes used as belt drives in checkouts and reverse vending machines for supermarkets.

As of March 1, 2020, Interroll will rebrand the location in Denmark as the CoE Commercial Belt Drives & Conveyors. The distinction ‘commercial’ stands for the difference from drum motors used in industrial (food processing and manufacturing) applications. The CoE will be responsible within the global Interroll Group for all technical concerns related to conveyors used in commercial settings, ranging from development and application engineering to production and support for local Interroll entities.

“With regards to supermarket, retail and omnichannel, customers have a need for lighter-duty, lean and cost-effective material handling solutions,” says Anders Staf Hansen, Managing Director of Interroll Denmark. “Besides the increasingly complex material handling processes at stores themselves, there is also a general need to cover the entire material flow in factories and distribution centres that are linked with the retail sector. As the world’s leading provider of material handling solutions, we will put an even stronger emphasis on such processes.”

Irish logistics specialist Morgan McLernon has announced a significant expansion onto the UK Mainland with the establishment of a major new purpose developed site in Telford, Shropshire. The new state-of-the-art 40,000 sq. ft. chilled facility is perfectly situated for linking Ireland with the UK mainland road network.

“This new site opens up an exciting range of new opportunities and possibilities for Morgan McLernon.” said Sean Hughes, Operations Director. “We are looking to expand the site capability to provide third party logistics support services for customers and hauliers wishing to link up with us. We can help with inputting pallets for delivery, loads that need to be rearranged or rebuilt, or help with pallet consolidation. Hauliers may also have a load that has fallen or is damaged. At our new facility we can strip the load, rebuild it, rewrap it, and reload it. This important site is also a hub for cross dock for our Ireland to UK Groupage operation and also our UK to Ireland Groupage operation.”

Operating since 1970 Morgan McLernon has a wealth of knowledge and experience in the transport, distribution, and shipping sector and has been transporting perishable foodstuffs such as fruit, vegetables, and meat for over forty years. Based in Lurgan County Armagh and now Telford, Morgan McLernon operates a fleet of 200 trucks and 500 trailers and employs over 550 staff. As part of Culina Group, Morgan McLernon specialise in ambient, chilled, and frozen distribution throughout the UK and Ireland and delivers to all major retailers including M+S, Morrison’s, Tesco, Iceland, Aldi, Lidl, Waitrose, Sainsbury’s, ASDA, also Amazon and Domino’s Pizza.

Third party logistics (3PL) provider, Yantra Fulfilment, has published its top 10 tips on what to look out for when selecting a fulfilment partner.
The Midlands-based firm has highlighted the 10 key areas that companies should be focussing on when considering how to provide an ‘Amazon-style’ fulfilment service.
Commercial director for Yantra, Steve Smith (above), said: “Effective fulfilment must be fast, accurate and flexible enough to meet evolving customer demands.
“In short, goods need to be in the right place at the right time and it is only by having a trusted 3PL partner that this can be consistently achieved.”

Yantra’s Top Tips for selecting a fulfilment partner:
1. Range of capabilities – Look for a partner that can serve all the channels you wish to serve – there is no point in picking a provider that does e-commerce really well but cannot serve your B2B customers with the same level of service.

2. Technology – Find out everything you can about the systems the 3PL uses. What is the uptime and do they have disaster recovery planning within their business, are questions that need to be explored.

3. Integration – Ensure that the 3PL can link seamlessly with your own systems and the major e-commerce platforms so that you have visibility of your orders and stock levels at all times.

4. Scalability – You are likely looking for a 3PL partner as your business is growing fast and the logistics element is taking up too much of your time. Look for a 3PL partner that has the ability to scale with you and offers distinct advantages in location(s) that suit your business that will ultimately cut your delivery costs.

5. Despatch and delivery insight – When it comes to customer satisfaction, this is one of the most crucial measures of all. Whether your 3PL partner does the final mile delivery themselves, or uses chosen couriers/hauliers, ensure that they have the ability to provide you and your customers updates on deliveries. Research shows that the vast majority of customers want to be kept informed and updated of their delivery.

6. Continuous Improvement – Is your 3PL partner innovative, or happy to just continue with current processes etc? Your 3PL partner should always be looking for improvements, be that through automation or robotics or general process improvements and should be able to inform you of their plans in this area.

7. Visibility of stock availability – A single view of stock is vital for most retailers today. Knowing exactly where stock is and in what numbers is vital for speedy, successful fulfilment of orders and ensuring customer satisfaction. Ensure that your 3PL partner can give you this information at all times.

8. Flexibility – Customer-focussed companies need a 3PL partner that can adapt to an evolving market place. Flexibility is a staple requirement to meet changing customer needs as well as trading peaks and troughs. Your 3PL partner should be able to flex its operations to meet your business needs, whether that flex is up or down.

9. Product accuracy – Many companies still accept low level order accuracy of around 90 percent but this is simply not good enough in today’s market. A 3PL partner that is using a good WMS and scanning process should be able to provide a figure much closer to 100 percent.

10. Value for money – Maintaining healthy margins can make a huge difference to the bottom line, which is why companies should only ever pay for what they actually use. The 3PL market is no different and charges should be based on actual monthly storage and activities rather than a non-specific fee.