The Brief

• Determine the storage and throughput requirements to satisfy the projected demand for two and five years ahead 

• Investigate the suitability of the existing warehouse plus the additional space available to meet those requirements. 

• To avoid spending unnecessary time and expense the analysis was undertaken at such a level to have sufficient information to determine the key factors, such as: 

• Size of areas required within the warehouse

• Resource requirements e.g. number of pickers 

Comag Forward initially operated out of two separate premises making it difficult for the operation to operate effectively in maintaining a high quality and effective service to its customers.

The then existing facilities in Coventry handled a total of nearly 90,000 tonnes of product, equivalent to over 7,400 tonnes per month. Bulk delivery was made to some 84 wholesalers in the UK, who in turn delivered to approximately 50,000 outlets.

The company is named after the town of Ceres in the Western Cape, South Africa where it was first founded in 1986. The Ceres valley is an important fruit growing region in southern Africa, particularly for apples, pears and stone fruits.

Ceres’s production and distribution facility in Johannesburg was at peak capacity for storage. Product was stored in a block stack arrangement with little or no available floor space for additional storage. The consequence of this was that the lack of additional storage capacity was affecting the businesses day to day operation.

The initial phase of the project was to undertake site visits/surveys to review the existing operation and identify the necessary data and other information on which to base the facility design. The next phase was to analyse, collate and summarise the data provided and review this with Barloworld to ensure that it was representative of Ellerines’ operation. This was followed by developing concept designs, to European standards, for the facilities in both ‘U’ Flow and Through Flow configurations and assessing their operation by benchmarking against best practice to deliver optimised, and therefore efficient, material flows and product handling.

At the point LPC were retained, the site had already been selected with an outline design having been produced.

During due-diligence it soon became evident that the flexibility of internal layout and operational facilities required by the client could not be met by the initial design.

In order to meet the business needs, LPC determined the warehouse storage and materials handling system design and specification, materials flow planning, definition of work processes and procedures, warehouse building design and preparation of performance specifications. This also extended to the warehouse site layout planning and office layouts both for main office and warehouse office.

Al Yasra Foods also successfully manages its own Private Label and licensed brands which together with the brands they distribute complete the product offering. To complement its market presence with direct access to households across the country, Al Yasra operates a unique retail showroom and home delivery network ‘Talabia’ throughout Kuwait.

LPC were retained by Alghanim to develop a Master Plan at their Jahra site in Kuwait that had an existing Electronics warehouse and a number of small ancillary buildings already built.

The brief was to conduct a detailed logistics-based study and develop a “MasterPlan” for the Jahra site to include the existing Electronics Warehouse, a new GTRC Warehouse, a multi-storey warehouse for New Cars, New Car Preparation (NCP) facilities, a new warehouse for Furniture and Home Furnishings, plus the potential (medium-longer term) re-development of the areas currently occupied by existing buildings, the Archives Store, open AC unit storage, and engineering open storage, plus such other site facilities as appropriate, and allowing for future growth of each part of the business.

LPC have a long standing relationship, of over 20 years, with Alf Mizzi (AM), supporting the business over this time with continued development of their site at Zachary House, Marsa in Malta. With continued growth AM had acquired some additional land with a view to moving car parking and some goods vehicle staging off the main distribution site to allow for extensions to the warehousing to take place.

LPC was commissioned to develop a site master plan and comprehensive concept design for the new temperature controlled DC. This documentation was used as the ‘client’s requirements’ for the appointed design consultants who developed the specific details for construction including architectural requirements, structural requirements, mechanical services, electrical services and drainage etc.

ABI the soft drinks Division of SAB Miller has operated in much the same way from both their wet (production) sites and dry (distribution) sites for years and new management and customer requirements warranted a move away from only side loaded vehicles to a proportion of tail loaded box trailers.

LPC had previously worked with SAB / ABI developing site and facility blueprint designs for future beer and soft drinks depot.