HIGHEST MOBILE SHELVING INSTALLATION

18 July 2008

The highest ever Link 51 mobile shelving system – providing a remarkable 4.2km of storage space – is now fully operational at the new Hill Dickinson archive facility in Liverpool. Measuring no less than seven metres in height. It can contain 16,000 individual storage boxes yet needs only a sixth of the floor space of the equivalent storage in a static facility.

‘HIGHEST EVER’ LINK 51 MOBILE SHELVING INSTALLATION HELPS HILL DICKINSON MAXIMISE ARCHIVE EFFICIENCY

The highest ever Link 51 mobile shelving system – providing a remarkable 4.2km of storage space – is now fully operational at the new Hill Dickinson archive facility in Liverpool. The installation, which effectively creates a solid ‘block’ of shelving that requires only individual access aisles to be open as necessary, measures no less than seven metres in height. It can contain 16,000 individual storage boxes yet needs only a sixth of the floor space of the equivalent storage in a static facility.

The project – at a location that also provides valuable storage for historical shipping and maritime records – has created a new central repository for legal documents and deeds that replaces a number of separate satellite storage units. Hill Dickinson is now able to enjoy a reduction in file retrieval costs as a direct result.

The Link 51 design is centred on a series of back-to-back shelving bays mounted on bases that run on parallel rails set into the floor. Each base can accommodate up to 22 tonnes yet can be easily moved laterally with the use of a lightweight, ergonomically designed hand wheel. Each hand wheel operation opens an individual aisle – exactly where required – to provide access for a mobile picking platform. This ability to vary the point of access allows the majority of the installation to be kept in a ‘closed’ configuration which, in turn, minimises the overall footprint required, helping to maximise storage space efficiency.

“Each back-to-back run features eight bays, each of which provides some 20 shelf levels. Three storage boxes are stored in each bay – the dimensions of which have been specified to match Hill Dickinson’s standard archive box sizes,” explains Link 51’s Projects Manager, Rob Dakin. “Moreover, because the entire facility is contained in just one part of the warehouse, it allows the majority of the building to be dedicated to other activities.”

Apart from the shelving installation, Link 51’s project management expertise was also brought to the fore at the site. This saw the company overseeing the flooring installation and civil works and also undertaking liaison with the order picker suppler to provide Hill Dickinson with just one point of contact for progress on the overall project. The result is a key, central facility that reflects on the continued and growing success of the Hill Dickinson organisation, as Head of Information Services David Smith explains –

“Our new archive facility is a key element in our move to new offices at St. Paul's Square in Liverpool and, in preparation for the move, we undertook a total review of how our lawyers work with files and how we needed to manage physical paper resources from file inception, through dormant, to archive. We have also implemented a bar-coding system which interfaces with our practice management systems, so that file records are visible to everyone, and requesting from archive is quick and simple,” he says.

“When investigating options for optimising space at the warehouse, we found the solution from Link 51 to be creative, economic and gave us maximum capacity for our budget,” he concludes.