January 11, 2008 - Whitworths is market leader in the healthy snacks market, offering a host of award winning, first-to-market innovations. Its Fruits 25g range was the first fruit snack in the UK to feature the Department of Health's 5 A DAY logo on-pack, and its latest new Love brand range of real fruit bars comprising only of 100% real fruit pieces. It was important for the company to retain its market-leading position through maximising economies of scale and improving efficiencies in its operations, in particular across its materials handling activities.
“We had a fleet of 70 trucks, many of which were in continual use across all aspects of our operation from raw materials intake, to production, packaging, and finished goods,” says Chris Owen, Whitworths’ Supply Chain manager. “However, our damage bills were significant.”
“We wanted to manage this better and reduce our costs. It was also important for us to improve our efficiencies through maximising our fleet utilisation and minimise downtime. So we started talking to Briggs Equipment.”
Briggs Equipment is the UK’s national Caterpillar ® Lift Truck dealer. The company wanted to thoroughly understand Whitworths’ diverse needs, so it undertook a series of five detailed surveys to assess the site and its different areas of operation and the different machine specifications that would be required. The survey also considered operator selection and training and various site and maintenance issues.
Jason Rudkin, account manager at Briggs Equipment, was keen to standardise and rationalise the fleet to improve usage and operations. “We looked at the fleet, and reduced it from 70 to a total of 56 trucks,” comments Rudkin. “Through specifying trucks that could multi-task and work anywhere across the site we increased the flexibility of working and allowed operators to use any truck for any operation. Whitworths’ site uses a unique drive-in racking system, so we built all the counterbalance trucks with drive-in racking modifications, which allow them to use the Caterpillar ® trucks to drive in and out of the racking, thereby dramatically improving their speed of operation. It has also helped to improve safety on site through the reduction in manual handling.”
Whitworths’ top priority was to better manage its fork lift truck operators. “Operators needed to be held more accountable for the damage they were causing and the effects this was having on the operation,” Chris Owen explains. “We needed a way to monitor impacts and damage as they occurred so that we could address and act on the problems as immediately. We were targeting for 50% year on year reduction in damage costs, so we needed an effective solution and quickly.”
As a result, Briggs fitted almost every truck in Whitworths’ fleet with the InfoLock’ truck management system. This included driver login procedure and a wireless system that transmits data on impacts and damage from the trucks as the incidents happen, updating the main LogIt system in real-time. “As well as providing thorough reports, the system also alerts us when impacts occur,“ comments Chris Owen. “This has helped to provide greater accountability for accidents and damage and helped to reduce damage around the site significantly.”
Briggs also put a set of stringent Service level agreements (SLAs) in place and set up quarterly review meetings to ensure that these were regularly monitored and reviewed. These included 90% service level uptime, first fix ratios, guaranteed truck replacement after 12 hours, and an ability to off-hire ten per cent of the fleet each year.
Whitworths’ fleet consists of a mixture of Cat® gas and electric counterbalance, reach trucks, low level order pickers, and power pallets on a five year contract. The trucks have in-built intelligent management systems, which allowed a speed limit to be set across the site and also limits drive speed when cornering and controls drive speed under load.
“Briggs designed a bespoke contract that suits our needs, both now and for the future. We have a great working partnership that has been built up over a number of years and Briggs do whatever it takes to solve our problems. ” comments Chris Owen.
Whitworths manufactures over 950 different products and produces 130 million snack packs every year making over 190,000 deliveries and using 50,000 tonnes of fruit in its production. Its materials handling solution through Briggs Equipment is now a real value adding activity, helping to increase profit margins and help Whitworths to gain even greater competitive advantage.
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Briggs Equipment UK
Briggs Equipment UK Ltd is a leading materials handling service provider and sole distributor of Yale Materials Handling products in Great Britain. Providing a wide range of equipment for a broad customer base, Briggs provides innovative, tailored and cost effective solutions on a nationwide basis. With its headquarters and national support centre in Cannock, Briggs people assist and advise in the delivery of long term solutions that enable customers to develop more efficient and results driven businesses.
Media contact:
Tiffany Clowes
Changeworks Communications
T. + 44 (0) 1785 247588
E.
Company Contact:
Sally Baker
Marketing Communications Manager
Briggs Equipment
Orbital Way
Cannock
WS11 8XW
T: 01543 437923
W: www.briggsequipment.co.uk
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