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Barloworld Gives Britvic a Refreshing Lift with Hyster Lp Gas Forklifts

Britvic Soft Drinks, one of the UK’s leading soft drinks businesses, uses Barloworld Handling to manage its materials handling fleet, which has helped Britvic to reduce costs and optimise efficiency, helping to keep the nation refreshed.

As the UK’s exclusive distributor of Hyster equipment since 1956, Barloworld maintains nearly 30,000 lift trucks in all types of UK industry. Britvic Soft Drinks sells approximately 1.4 billion litres of soft drinks per year and operates six UK production facilities and a national distribution centre (NDC) based in Lutterworth, Leicestershire.

Chris Jackson, regional drive site manager responsible for Britvic’s materials handling fleet, said: “All drinks are palletised and handled by the materials handling fleet, critical to every Britvic operation. Barloworld is a national partner that provides dedicated local support. The team has helped us improve our understanding of how we use the equipment and how we can manage it more effectively to improve performance and reduce downtime.”

Barloworld manages more than 200 Hyster units for Britvic, ranging from counterbalance forklift trucks to order pickers and pallet trucks.

“Truck utilisation is now properly managed so that we balance the hours used across the fleet and centrally manage lifetime costs. This has had a significant positive impact and our contracts with Barloworld are now tuned accordingly,” Chris said.

Britvic’s 275,000sqft NDC in Lutterworth receives approximately 60 per cent of all Britvic’s finished products, handling 470 vehicles a day in peak periods. Pallets are received by lorry and unloaded by eight Hyster H4.0FT Advance+ lpg forklifts with a double pallet handling attachment.

Steve Martin, facilities manager at Lutterworth, said: “The Fortens trucks should work 70-80 hours a week in an intense, short run, stop-start operation, but we were finding that the hours were incredibly high for some trucks but not others, with associated penalties. We now direct drivers to use specific trucks for each shift, saving money and optimising the management of scheduled maintenance.”

Barloworld introduced its new fleet management system to Britvic in 2009, which uses a telemetry device (BTD) to transmit data from all Britvic’s trucks directly to Barloworld’s secure back office management system. The system collects, analyses and reports truck performance data, such as hour meter readings, impacts, maintenance completion and cost of ownership information. Data for all sites is then accessible through a secure online portal, also providing an instant audit trail.

Goods received at Lutterworth are transferred from the lorries to an automated pallet handling system by the Hyster H4.0FT trucks and then stored in high bay warehousing with over 50,000 pallet locations. More than 300 pallets are then typically picked per hour for onward distribution and loaded onto curtain sided trailers by the Hyster trucks with double pallet handlers or loaded into containers by Hyster Fortens H2.5FT Advance on a ramp. The Fortens trucks feature the Duramatch transmission, helping to reduce tyre wear, and low maintenance wet brakes.

Steve said: “The drivers like the Hyster trucks. It’s their office and so they have to be comfortable, with fingertip hydraulics and various other features helping them to continually perform well whilst maintaining a safe working environment.”

Pallets are also transferred to the case picking area where 12 Hyster LO2.0M low-level order pickers and two Hyster J1.80XMTs are used for picking around 30,000 cases in 24 hours. Barloworld also maintains the floor cleaning equipment onsite and provides other services, such as driver training and short-term hire equipment.

Chris said: “Barloworld operates as Britvic’s partner, providing a dynamic and flexible service across the UK. The team understands our business, drives down costs and continually improves efficiency as our business grows.”

Contact Barloworld Handling on 0800 137449 www.barloworld.co.uk

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