Link 51 completes the third and final stage of Horwood Homewares’ Avonmouth storage facility

As one of the country’s leading distributors of branded cookware, Horwood Homewares, now part of European cookware manufacturer, Silampos SA supplies no less than 2,000 individual products including the famous Horwood, Judge and Stellar ranges to retail outlets nation-wide from its Avonmouth site. Established in 1896, Horwood Homewares has built an unparallelled reputation for providing excellence for both the kitchen and home ware market. Because of its success the company needed to rationalise its storage facility in order to bulk storage with individual item picking in the one racking facility. This requirement was fully addressed by Link 51, the storage solutions experts.  Link 51 had worked with the company before on two separate occasions, and was delighted to be asked to be involved in the third stage of the development at the site.  Link 51’s completed facility enabled Horwood Homewares to accommodate products with up to a year's shelf-life alongside those where sufficient supply had to be retained for each month’s delivery.

Our brief

Link 51 was tasked with combing storage for both bulk and individually-picked items within the one design. We needed to ensure the storage facility matched the current demand and was sufficiently flexible to accommodate any increasing future demand and growth. Link 51 also needed to ensure that the layout allowed the maximum benefit from both the racking depth and load capability of the uprights employed. We were asked to simplify access from the full range of high level pallet storage areas to replenish picking bays below, and ensure that the racking layout met the ergonomic requirements of the picking process. Link 51’s over-riding brief was to ensure the facility offered a 

long-life solution to the company’s storage requirements.

Our solution

• Link 51 standard components were used throughout the facility.

• Half of these were dedicated to high level racking with low level picking bins below.

• Link 51 dividers were used to create individual picking locations.

• Durability was addressed through the use of Link 51 galvanised decking and upright dividers.

• The racking layout accommodated Flexi-truck movement that in turn provided a 40% increase in the capacity.

• Our full depth design eradicated 'dead areas' at the back of each racking level.