BS Handling Systems has designed and installed a complete materials handling and storage solution at 3PL Noatum Logistics’ latest 378,000ft2 UK DC located in Medway, Kent.
The £3.5 million turnkey package includes racking for flat-pack, a goods-in monorail system for hanging garments (GOH) with elevators up through four mezzanine floors along with tote and goods-in conveyors with booms for flat-pack boxes.
There is pick-to-light on the ground floor for e-commerce fulfilment and a goods-returned conveyor system. The solution also includes packing benches, goods lifts, rack labelling and a new warehouse management system (WMS) supplied in conjunction with partner IDC.
The Noatum DC building is 20m high and has a footprint of 150,000ft2. The four mezzanine floors above the ground level are an integral part of the building structure and account for an additional 228,000ft2. A great deal of time and effort was invested in the design phase of the project to ensure that the facility would meet the differing needs of Noatum’s customers – the site will handle the retail, wholesale, eCommerce and eCommerce returns for at least five customers.
To accommodate the varying requirements, BS Handling Systems has installed a monorail system to transport GOH from goods-in up through all the mezzanine floors. For flat-pack boxes it supplied a conveyor system whilst for oversize items three goods lifts were included in the package.
“This was a very important project for us,” explained Steve Hicks, Managing Director Contract Logistics at Noatum Logistics UK. “It has been almost five years in the planning; in 2019 we secured a suitable greenfield site for this design-and-build project, breaking ground in 2020. A huge amount of work went into ensuring the project would be a success and this all started with assembling the right team of partners.”
