A pallet exchanger from Payne Pallet Inverters is raising productivity and safety standards at Alliance Boots’ Stores Service Centre (SSC) in Nottingham. The facility, which will supply some 2,600 Boots stores, features two, highly automated central warehouses which will hold up to 30,000 SKUs as well as processing up to 5,200 inbound pallets and 2.8 million picks over a 20 hour operation.
A small percentage of the fastest moving lines are handled outside the automated solution and a number of vendor pallet loads have to be inverted onto system pallets so that they are compatible with the automation, so Boots turned to the experts at Payne Pallet Inverters.
Payne proposed an automated pallet exchanger to eliminate manual handling during the transfer of loads between pallet types. Once in the exchanger, the load is supported from above and on both sides by tables which incorporate Payne’s pressure sensing clamping technology. The pallet is then lowered to the ground for removal and replacement and the load on its new pallet is returned to the start position.
The exchanger has fully automatic controls, pallet alignment to keep loads centred, crucial when loading racking, and was supplied with 2000mm safety guards and a pedestrian light barrier system. The machine was delivered on time and installed over three days.
