Factory floor upgraded to VNA specification

A 60-year-old industrial building where the UK's first jet engines were built by Sir Frank Whittle during World War II has been successfully transformed into a high-bay warehouse with the installation of a new high-specification floor by the Concrete Grinding Group.

The warehouse, near Leicester, measures 80 metres long, 20 metres wide and 15 metres high and is the latest development by Rutland-based logistics company C S Ellis (Group) Ltd. Following the refurbishment project, it now operates as a narrow-aisle warehouse with wire-guided lift trucks operating in five runs of
14-metre-high racking.

The original floor was in poor condition and contained steel rails, deep holes and other problems, so a 180mm concrete slab was laid on top of it to the Concrete Society's TR34 Category 1 standard. Using laser screeding equipment, this part of the project took only five days.

Concrete Grinding then commissioned a profileograph survey of the floor before using its LaserGrinder to upgrade the four racking aisles to DM1 'superflat' tolerances. Grinding the four 80-metre-long aisles took ten working days, after which the narrow-aisle racking and wire guidance system were installed.