Galvanised racks to prevent corrosion

Founded in 1874, Peacock Salt is the largest salt distributor in the United Kingdom for winter equipment and roads, water softening products, foods, industrial, and cosmetic salts.

Need

Peacock imports between 100,000 and 650,000 tonnes of salt a year for all of the UK. Its central offices are in Ayr, with dock installations for unloading vessels, onsite packaging installations, and a customised mixing line.

The client had a live storage system with 4 height levels and a capacity for 937 pallets.

Due to the loading and unloading processes, it was frequent for the bags of salt loaded on the pallets to split, causing the sprinkled salt to rust the track rollers, and the very structure of the racks.

Corrosion of the rollers within the racking caused most of the operational problems. From incidents with pallets that became stuck on the middle of the track rollers when these started to seize up, to pallets that were diverted and pushed the bags of salt up against the uprights.

In all cases, the operator’s intervention was required to rectify the problem, which in itself was a health and safety risk, as well as a waste of time due to inactivity and labour expense for the time required to solve the problems. As more and more salt spilled, the corrosion problem worsened.

Solution

POLYPAL proposed to Peacock Salt a shuttle system and conventional pallet racking made of galvanised stainless steel.

A solution was installed with 5 levels at height and a capacity to store 1,118 pallets. The load capacity at height increased by 14% .

The configuration was made for a cross-deck pallet of 1,200×1,000 mm, with pallets accessed from two sides – front and back, leaving the installation available for use in FIFO or LIFO mode.

Shuttle-serviced racking provided a semi-automated solution to avoid a large proportion of loading and unloading of the bags using forklifts, which could break them.

A new warehouse was installed consisting of stainless steel racks with a galvanised frame, as a structure offering increased anticorrosion protection.

Advantages of the new storage system

• Loading and unloading by forklifts is reduced, thanks to the shuttle system
• Possibility of combining references on the same rail (front / back)
• Incorporates the pallet counting function for stock verification
• Loading speed and ease of use of the racking with the shuttle system

Technical data sheet

• Salt sack storage
• Capacity: 1,148 pallets
• 5 height levels
• Load capacity at height increased by 14%
• Possibility of FIFO or LIFO storage mode
• Possibility of combining references on the same rail