Euro Car Parts have made significant investments in returnable transit packaging and automation over the last 2 years. Standard sizes plastic trays or totes are used on wheeled dollies to ship car parts from the national distribution centre to branches. The totes are stacked 5 layers high at the NDC by automation and banded for security.
The investment has dramatically reduced the manual handling of parts and increased picking productivity and vehicle utilisation compared to historical use of roll cages.
The benefit of stacking the plastic boxes 5 high is primarily to increase vehicle utilisation. However, a concern is that the top 2 layers of plastic totes, containing up to 25kg of goods, are above shoulder height. Under Health and Safety guidelines for manual handling, this increases the risk to colleagues when de-stacking the totes at branch.
Euro Car Parts recognised the need for a Safe System of Work for handling the totes at their network of over 250 branches and approach M J Products, specialists in lifting, handling, and moving of small to medium size loads.
M J Products worked alongside project managers from Euro Car Parts to develop a handling solution specific the requirements.
- To pick up 2 layers of totes, with 2 per layer, directly from a dolly
- To be able to lower the totes to a suitable picking height to allow merchandising direct to shelf at waist height.
- To be lightweight and easy to use.
- To be able to be store efficiently when not in use
The result is our tote lifter model TL2, which will work effectively with a range of manufacturers’ totes of the standard 600×400 euro footprint.
See our website for more information about this and other tote lifting products.
Or get in touch and we will advise on a suitable solution for your application.
The TL2 is lightweight at under 45kg and incorporates the patented DuoPump fast lift system and safety features preventing lifting of overload.
M J Products offers a range of products for handling plastic totes, containers, and other returnable transit packaging, (RTP). Many of our designs are specific to customer requirements.