2006-07-12 Three-tiered storage system

VICTORIAN-based company Comcater is a national supplier of commercial catering equipment such as Combi ovens, fryers, dishwashers, ranges, microwaves, and food storage equipment, as well as replacement parts.
The Regal 3000 modular, multi-functional storage system.

Faced with a warehouse space crisis, due to a rapid expansion of business over the last three years, Comcater needed to move to a larger warehouse, however, a need was also recognised to be smarter in utilising the available space when taking into consideration longer term future growth.

This meant a better utilisation of ceiling space traditionally wasted in warehouse storage areas.

Comcater supplies its systems and related equipment to a wide range of market sectors which includes hotels, hospitals and restaurants. The company also counts multi-national fast food outlets amongst its customers, therefore, in order to provide and maintain improved service and support facilities urgent steps needed to be taken.

Business manager Sam Schirripa said in the past three years, Comcater had grown significantly and virtually doubled its need for storage resources.

We were simply running out of space to store our wide range of products and replacement parts. In addition to our own warehouse we were also spending thousands of dollars per month on off site warehousing which created additional problems like double handling and increased transport costs."

With an urgent need to consolidate its entire stock under one roof and to upgrade its current systems and procedures Comcater's project management team went to work to source the most appropriate and functionally practical systems available on the market.

Two of Australia's leading warehouse systems companies were chosen to determine the best possible options to meet Comcater's needs; one of which was SSI Schaefer International through its Victorian dealership partner Absolute Storage Systems; a company with thirty years of experience in the materials handling field.

Finally, Absolute was chosen as the preferred supplier based on the flexibility and modular design of the SSI Schaefer "Regal 3000" small parts storage system and attention to the detail of its clients storage needs.

"We knew we needed a multi-tiered mezzanine system to store a whole range of small parts and at the same time have the flexibility to categorise our stock into slow moving and fast moving products, Mr Schirripa said.

The 'Regal 3000' enabled us to have a three-tiered modular system, which couldn't be provided by other suppliers, that suited our exact specification."

The Regal 3000 is a modular, bolt and clip free, multi-functional storage system designed around a frame construction specifically for the storage of small parts.

The system provides shelves of varying sizes and depths which are adjustable by 50mm increments and includes a larger auxiliary range of plastic containers, dividers, lockable doors and drawers.

The system meets the exacting European safety standard F.E.M. 10.2.02 and is designed to be a cost-effective way of making some big economies of scale.

The total build cost for fitting out the new premises came to approximately $400,000 and also consisted of up to 3000 pallet locations constructed from 6.75 metre and 8.25 metre high Schaefer Interlock i600 racking, with approximately 1000 mesh decks to accommodate European pallets and irregular shaped products.

The Regal 3000 uses only 407 square metres of floor space and rises to a height of 7.2 metres. The bottom level stores fast moving small parts: level two is for the slower moving products, while the top level is presently utilised to store company archives until required.

An important characteristic of the system is that it has a load bearing capacity of 5000kg per bay which makes it suitable for a multi-level configuration with raised walkways, and for the storage of heavy items, thereby using under-utilised ceiling space instead of floor space.