Flow rack system supports range of pallet types and weights

Getrag Ford Transmissions is the world’s largest independent supplier of transmissions and drive systems for passenger cars and light commercial vehicles with around 13,250 employees spread across 24 sites. The company, located in Liverpool, England, sought to centralize storage of incoming palletized parts, but the concept presented a number of challenges with the many variations in pallet construction, size, materials and weights. A new dynamic pallet flow storage system now accommodates a variety of pallet types.

Neil Hodgkinson, contract manufacturing engineer at Getrag, says the project was part of a wider lean logistics project to centralize logistics operations within the plant. “The new pallet flow system has been located closer to our production area and has provided compact, space-saving cubic storage, enabling identical products to be grouped in the same lane and bays,” he says. “This, in turn, simplifies location and order picking of parts to support production of some 1,600 to 2,000 gearboxes daily.”

The new system (Interroll, interroll.com) consists of 228 pallet positions in the rack structure, four pallets deep, three tiers high with 19 lanes. Supporting FIFO (first-in, first-out) storage, the system handles a mix of pallets including Euro pallets (800 mm x 1,200 mm), UK pallets (1,000 mm x 1,200 mm), plastic pallets with bases featuring three runners, and those designed with nine raised plastic feet—all carrying weights from 600 kg to 1,000 kg.

Following extensive testing in the supplier’s facility, each lane was designed with 60-mm diameter rollers at a 78-mm pitch and a safety mechanism to ensure the safety of operators. When an operator removes a pallet from the order picking face, there is a time delay before the device releases the next pallet in line. Speed controllers move pallets at 0.3 meters per second regardless of weight. All of the FIFO lanes were fitted with rollers 1,250 mm wide to future-proof the system in the event 1,200 mm x 1,200 mm wooden pallets are introduced.