The on-going success of the Siemens Variable Speed Drive Assembly Plant in Congleton, Cheshire has placed more emphasis on the need to maximise efficient use of space. With some 700,000 individual assemblies produced each year the company expects the figure to increase to one million to meet demand worldwide.
As a result, Link 51 has brought an increasing element of its storage equipment and expertise to the fore, completing a long list of separate installations designed to enhance and reflect increases in Siemens’ production activity. The location has become a show site which demonstrates production efficiency to a regular number of international visitors.
Four levels of pallet racking featuring bays that can accommodate three palletised cages, enhanced by safety mesh backing at specific locations, is a separate home for products and components adjacent to the production area. In the latter, several production stations are kept supplied by tote bins which are fed onto a four-tier Link 51 product-live facility to ensure that interruptions in the production processes are avoided.
Significantly as production levels have increased, with a consequent pressure on space, Siemens has managed to relocate its testing facilities onto a 6m x 30m mezzanine structure – also supplied by Link 51. The heavy duty design can accommodate some 12 individual testing stations, typically weighing one and a half tonnes, whilst the uprights supporting the mezzanine deck itself have been positioned to maximise floor usage underneath.
Link 51’s Longspan and chromed wire shelving features heavily at the site with an additional number of specialist installations from the company including a product lift to the mezzanine and a walkway through the pallet racking area to separate staff from the forklift truck operating floor.
Link 51 is one of several specialists exhibiting at Logistics Link 2005, being held at Sandown Park, Esher, Surrey on February 1 and 2, 2005. For further information contact Richard Milbourn on 020 8661 1160, email richard.milbourn@sevenkingspublications.com or visit www.logisticslink.co.uk
