We are tooled up for this project!

KP Industries has been assisting its sister company, FM Nicholson, to deliver an installation for a major player in the tools industry.

Oldham-based FM Nicholson have completed a “world-class installation” of a parcel-handling system for Hilti GB – a leading manufacturer of construction hand power tools and fixings.

The Stockport-based supplier identified a major bottle neck within their process, cre-ating delays in the efficient delivery of parcels.

Hilti approached Nicholson regarding the logistical challenge which required the parcels to be prepared and packed on the first floor and despatched for delivery by pallet from the ground floor resulting in an inefficient and wasteful process with a high degree of manual handling and work in progress.

A review of the process was carried out. After process re-mapping it was decided to introduce a new, dedicated conveyor system to transfer automatically all the parcels onto a chute which allowed the parcels to slide in a controlled manner down to the ground floor and onto an un-loading table, via a gravity roller conveyor storage sec-tion.

Purpose-built packing tables were designed having gravity roller conveyor feed, with low friction packing area and the facility to be manually adjusted in height to create the ideal ergonomic working conditions.

The system stops if there are no packages on the conveyor, saving electrical running costs and reducing maintenance.

Peter Hopwood, from Nicholson, said: “Like many of our projects, the conveyor specification was critical to the operation of the system within the space con-straints”.

The lineshaft powered roller conveyor system offers extremely good value for mon-ey with robust construction and operator safety, in this instance, featuring a 90-degree corner turn, using much less space than a standard powered roller conveyor bend, feeding directly into the spiral chute”.

“We were able to overcome this logistical challenge and delivered a unique, world-class handling system which allows the customer to safely deliver the products on a two-tier level.”