Racking a winner – DCS Europe

DCS Europe are specialist distributors of Health and Beauty products to discount retailers and wholesalers throughout the UK. When they first contacted RediRack, the company had only been experienced phenomenal growth. This project was to extend an existing block of RediRack racking, effectively doubling storage capacity to 5,500 pallet spaces.

In the next eighteen months, the family-owned company continued to expand, increasing its turnover by a further 30% in the process, and outgrowing the site. A site, previously occupied by Stratford Upon Avon Foods, became available and the Directors moved quickly to acquire the premises.

Most modern warehouses tend to be high and have a small footprint. DCS Europe’s new site is exactly the opposite, occupying 10.5 acres and having low ceilings throughout. As Nigel Shortt, Managing Director, explains this suits the needs of the business. “We distribute several hundred mixed case orders every day and we have learnt over the years that an ideal warehouse for us has to have a lot of pick faces. Stock must move through the business extremely quickly. Keeping the pick faces at ground level is the ideal solution. We also require a large order collation and marshalling area as we export to 55 countries and we need space to inspect and manage the goods. At 235,000 square feet – five times larger than our old site – the new premises are ideal.”

We were given the brief to create as much storage as possible, whilst providing a logical product flow through the building. Our design took account of the building’s natural barriers and enabled storage and picking zones to be segregated. Due to the size, we were able to leave a large open floor space for order consolidation and marshalling.

The resulting installation has 15,000 pallet locations, although 7,000 of these are in an adjacent building, which is currently let out to a transport company. Due to the building’s height, the majority of the runs of racking have only one or two beam levels, with bottom pallets stored on the floor. Only at the building’s apexes are four high storage possible. Standard 1,000mm x 1,200mm pallets are used with three pallets being stored at each bay level.