The Bristol Port Company has acquired a fleet of three Jungheinrich ETV 320 reach trucks featuring the patented mast dampening system to serve an 8,500m2 storage unit for leading wines and spirits importer Matthew Clark
The Port of Bristol is Britain’s most centrally located deep sea port. With around 42 million people living within a 250km radius of the facility and the Midlands and London within easy reach, it is recognised as one of the most economical port distribution locations in the UK.
Plenty of major retailers and suppliers to the retail sector have chosen to establish national distribution centres near to the port and one of the latest is leading wines and spirits importer Matthew Clark which recently moved into an 8,500m2 storage unit within the Royal Portbury Dock.
The facility is operated on Matthew Clark’s behalf by the Bristol Port Company and offers over 10,000 pallet locations. While there is some block stacking at the site, the majority of the pallets are stored within pallet racking served by a fleet of three Jungheinrich reach trucks. The reach trucks – Jungheinrich ETV 320 models with a two-tonne capacity – were purchased outright by the Bristol Port Company.
A significant influence on the Bristol Port Company’s decision to specify models from the Jungheinrich range was that they feature Jungheinrich’s patented mast dampening system. When working at height, truck masts sway and, for obvious safety reasons, truck operators have to wait for the swaying to stop before attempting to deliver the pallet into the racking. Jungheinrich’s mast damping system minimises elevated fork (laden or unladen) swaying time.
The pallet racking within Matthew Clark’s facility has been designed to maximise space available within the apex of the roof and, at its highest point, offers six beam levels. This means the trucks lift to heights of over 11 metres and it was calculated the Jungheinrich damping system saved 14 seconds per lift when compared to alternative makes of reach truck.
The Bristol Port Company’s Paul Osborne, who manages the Matthew Clark site, was also impressed by the trucks’ state of the art AC technology which, importantly, ensures that running costs are kept to a minimum.
The trucks’ regenerative braking and regenerative mast lowering features reduce energy usage – and therefore truck running costs – significantly by reclaiming excess energy and using it to charge the battery every time operators brake or lower the forks. Around 25 per cent of the energy needed during a typical shift is said to be reclaimed in this way – meaning every fourth lift is energy free.
Some 4,000 line items are stored at Matthew Clark’s Bristol facility. Incoming lorries are unloaded using a combination of pallet trucks and counterbalance machines and pallets are checked and allocated a position within the racking by Matthew Clarke’s warehouse management system before being put away by the reach trucks.
Because of the expensive and fragile nature of the loads and the heights to which they are lifted, each of the reach trucks is fitted with a fork-mounted camera system, height selectors and centralised side sift to ensure that pallet put-away and retrieval is as fast, efficient and safe as possible.
“We undertook numerous visits to reference sites before concluding our client’s needs were best met by the Jungheinrich trucks,” says Osborne.
“We also involved our drivers in the decision and they were impressed by the trucks handling and the comfortable working environment.”
The trucks were supplied with a red paint finish to meet The Bristol Port Company’s corporate requirements.
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