With a footprint of over 500,000 sq ft and the provision to store over a million tyres, Goodyear Dunlop's Tyrefort is the largest tyre warehouse and distribution centre in the UK. Situated alongside the M6 in Birmingham, over 150 people work in the purpose built facility which operates 24 hours a day,
7 days a week.
Efficient storage of the tyres is essential in the fast turnaround environment of the warehouse which handles up to 60,000 tyres in each
24 hour period. To achieve this, Goodyear Dunlop chose LINPAC Storage Systems as their storage partner to design, manufacture and install racking on the large scale that was required for Tyrefort.
During the day tyres are delivered in, sorted and placed into stills - many of these tyres will be transported out again the next day. Orders are received into the distribution centre until up to 5pm when picking lists are created ready for picking to start at 7pm.
Picking is done throughout the night from ground level, so fast moving tyres are kept in the bottom bays – with the same product stored above. As the bottom bays empty the stills above can be lowered as required. At 7am, twelve hours from commencement of picking, lorries are setting off from the 47 loading bays delivering up to 35,000 tyres to garages and retail outlets around the UK on a next-day delivery service.
The faster moving tyres are stored in stills in 60 runs of LINPAC's adjustable pallet racking. Strong still supports, a bespoke design by LINPAC for Goodyear Dunlop, hold the tyres which are placed in a 'ricked' arrangement of up to 140 tyres per still, depending on their size. To protect the base of the pallet racking uprights from damage, column guards have been positioned into the warehouse floor.
Slower moving, low volume tyres are housed in Richie pallets in Very Narrow Aisle (VNA) racking at one end of the warehouse. The 12 runs of racking have been configured into a 7 pallets high, 28 bays long construction.
Tim Judge, Sales and Marketing Director of LINPAC Storage Systems commented "Our challenge was to create the ideal environment for the most efficient storage and picking of up to a million tyres. The resulting storage solution in Tyrefort demonstrates LINPAC's ability to deal with the biggest contracts in the industry. Yet, because of the way we have organised the company, someone can still buy a single bay of shelving from us. Our success stems from the way the company handles these very different projects, giving each the necessary support they require."