Fuchs aims for lubricants top spot with giant new automated site
2 Oct 2019
Fuchs Lubricants has begun work on a £5 million fully-automated raw materials warehouse with 4,000 pallet spaces at its Staffordshire headquarters.
It forms part of a £10million investment programme, which will also include a massive introduction of new manufacturing plant machinery and a new multi-line pallet loading robot arm.
High Bay warehouse in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent, is scheduled to open in the second quarter of 2020, enabling the existing building to become a specialist packaging warehouse.
Head of operations Mark Gray, said of the firm, which is the UK arm of the world’s largest independent lubricants manufacturer: “We have an ambition to place Fuchs Lubricants at the forefront of R&D, manufacturing and distribution of lubricants in the UK.
“This raw materials warehouse represents a significant investment for the business, and a further step towards that goal. [It] includes sophisticated automation, which will future-proof the business and create cost-saving benefits.”
Two wire guided driverless Very Narrow Aisle trucks will operate in the warehouse, benefitting from high travel and lift speeds, without operator intervention.
The high-tech Warehouse Control and Warehouse Management Systems streamline include goods receipt entry and booking, a paperless put-away process, inventory support and batch traceability.
