Kingwinsford-based company FDB Distribution is realising an increase of more than 30% in order picking efficiency and overall productivity having replaced ageing VNA trucks with new Jungheinrich ETX Kombi man-up machines.
The company has taken on two of the new trucks as founder and managing director Francis de Beer says: “First impressions are what counts in business and while our second-hand VNA equipment was fine and was all that we could afford initially, such machines do tend not to look good from a customer viewpoint once having being used day in and day out. True, it could supply us with fully reconditioned machines that would more than satisfy our need s. But using today’s technology we are now able to realise operational and performance gains owing to the benefits afforded by AC rather than DC-powered machines. In fact, everything is now much quicker to pick, we are realising productivity gains of 30% or more.”
At FDB’s 6,045sq m Kingwinsford complex, the two ETK Kombis are assisting with the input and output of up to 2,000 pallets a week. The 1,250kg capacity machines contend with the picking and despatch of single or multiple carton orders, which account for about 40% of daily throughput levels.
To speed handling with the 20 aisle VNA storage complex, each truck operator is equipped with a hand-held radio data terminal and barcode reader linked directly to FDB’s warehouse management system, enabling all transactions to be carried out in real-time.
