Bohler Uddeholm UK wins SHD Logistics
Award for Warehouse Efficiency
KASTO automated warehouse customer, highperformance engineering steel stockholder
Bohler Uddeholm UK, Oldbury, has won the
2016 SHD Logistics Award for Warehouse
Efficiency. It was presented by comedian Mark
Watson in front of 600 industry professionals
during a dinner at Resorts World Birmingham in
mid-September.
Peter MacLeod, editor of SHD Logistics, said, “The
mood of the evening was celebratory and upbeat
and it was heartening to see the obvious delight
and pride shown by the successful entrants. I
congratulate Bohler Uddeholm - a very deserving
winner.” The automated storage and retrieval
facility is 15 metres high, 37 metres long and
contains 2,377 travelling cassettes capable of
holding steel bars and tubes up to eight metres
long, maximum weight per location being 3.5
tonnes.
Tom Gowans, managing director of Bohler
Uddeholm UK said, “We kicked off the demanddriven logistic project in April 2013, knowing
that we would need to invest to realise our vision
of 50 per cent growth in throughput by 2020.
“Our group financial backing has allowed us to
invest, despite the challenging climate in key
sectors. We had a choice, invest or stagnate, so we
modernised. The new plant came on stream during
the first quarter of 2016.”
Key advantages of the installation are a reduction
of forklift trucks from 15 to six, an 80 per cent
saving in floor area compared with using cantilever
racking, and warehouse operator costs down by
15 per cent, with staff deployed elsewhere on site.
The warehouse is also benefiting customers, as the
stockholder can now ensure same-day picking and
despatch for all orders received before noon.
He went on to explain that value-added activities
give Bohler Uddeholm customers access to
cutting, machining, bevelling and other services.
If required, on-site testing gives customers
certification additional to that supplied by the mill.
Bohler Uddeholm is part of the Special Steel
Division of voestalpine Stahl AG, which owns mills
in Austria, Germany, Sweden and Brazil producing
cold and hot work steels, mould and tool steels,
high speed steels and various alloys including
nickel-based varieties.
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TN DECEMBER 2016