Increased Storage Capacity For Premium Brand Distributor
SEC Storage has designed and installed a pallet racking storage solution at Beam Group allowing the business to significantly increase storage capacity to facilitate current and future business growth.
Client: Beam Group
Location: Cambridge
Project Summary: Design and installation of a pallet racking storage solution allowing the business to significantly increase storage capacity to facilitate current and future business growth
SEC Storage has designed and installed a pallet racking storage solution at Beam Group allowing the business to significantly increase storage capacity to facilitate current and future business growth.
Established in 1985, Beam Group is recognised as the UK’s only exclusive distributor of premium small domestic appliances, floorcare and air treatment, with a comprehensive network of retailers, including premium department stores, specialist online retailers and independent stores as customers.
With space at a premium in the existing two units in Cambridge, and with significant movement of inventory between the buildings leading to operational challenges, Beam looked to take on a new warehouse premises which had sufficient storage capacity for their full product range and allow for expansion in line with their growth objectives.
The new, much larger warehouse was conveniently located in close proximity to their two existing units. SEC had already created a conceptual racking plan for the developer, which led to the Beam Group contacting SEC to discuss their requirements.
SEC Storage undertook detailed analysis of Beam Group’s operational and product data and provided a design and installation proposal for a pallet racking and storage solution that would increase both storage capacity and pick efficiency to ensure productivity levels were in line not only with current requirements, but specifically for their expected high levels of expansion through growth in online sales.
The design for the new building offered Beam numerous pallet locations with storage of pallets across the higher levels, and a number of single pick locations installed at ground floor level for manual picking for their smaller independent customers as well as the direct-to-consumer arm of the business, who request smaller quantities of stock.
The 21-strong warehouse operations team at Beam are now able to manage the storage and distribution of over 800 different stock keeping units (SKUs) with a stock of 600 at any one time. Their inbound deliveries average 250 pallets of goods per week as well as 10 containers of product direct from factories, the majority of which is then palletised on-site prior to storage.
Forklift trucks are used to move items from goods-in to the racking area with each product assigned its own pick location. Subsequently, the forklifts then pick the required palletised items and transport them to the packing area ready for dispatch. Alternatively, the trucks transport pallets from the racking to the ground level pick locations for manual picking of smaller quantities. The team processes customer orders of around 25000 units per week across 5 ½ days with plans to move to a 7-day operation to support the growing demand for next day delivery.
Since the racking solution was installed in the new premises, stock holding capacity has increased by 300% and this ability to hold larger volumes of their best-selling products has had an immediate, positive impact on the business with a significant increase in sales.
With future expansion in mind, SEC Storage has also provided a phase two option for additional pallet racking to be installed which would protect against spikes in demand and offer Beam Group the capacity to hold additional buffer stock, opening up opportunities with both retailers and direct customers.
Will Hindle, Head of Business Operations at Beam Group commented:
“We’re delighted with the storage solution from SEC Storage. From the outset, they had a different way of interpreting our business, which was a unique approach to other suppliers. They were more interested in the long term objectives of our business, our expected growth and what this, in turn, would mean for our storage requirements in the future.”
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