SOUTHAMPTON FREIGHT SERVICES LTD

Continuing to Grow – New Warehouse!

Our development as business has always been measured. We have steadily grown over our 21 years, ensuring that we retain our high levels of customer care. Increasing our team members is easy enough; in 2015 when we built our new offices, we ensured enough room to grow into. Although now, with over 40 employees, the office space is becoming a little less spacious!

However, warehouse space is an entirely different proposition! Our warehouse was coming under more pressure for space in the first quarter of this calendar year, as our excellent consolidation and bonded storage services gathered more business, thanks to the fantastic support of our warehouse team. We also thank our sales team for helping in that regard!

So, in July 2019 we took the decision to extend our facility by adding Unit E, alongside our Units F&G on Griffin Industrial Park.

The new unit adds a further 8888 sq feet, giving us now a combined facility of approximately 27,000 sq feet. This development helps us extend our warehousing capability, enhancing our bonded storage areas, providing additional space for our pick/pack operations and creating a better flow throughout our facility.

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Between the beginning of October and the middle of November, we undertook a huge project, investing considerable funds into re-designing our two current warehouses, and fully rack the new unit E, extending our racked storage capability to almost 1500 pallet positions, switching to narrow aisles and changing our forklift from reach trucks to flexi trucks, to allow for this reduction from 2850mm wide aisles to 2000mm. And a new fork-truck with a 3.5T capacity with integrated side shift, fork positioner and kooi extending forks to reduce loading/unloading time.

We’ve installed sensored LED lighting with light and movement sensors, new CCTV and security systems, a new security cage for our aviation secure cargo, and a knock through between the existing unit F and the new unit E to allow free movement of our fork trucks between all three units. All of this carried out whilst the main operation continued – quite a challenge for our warehouse team.

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In addition to the racked areas, we also created multiple open space zones for consolidation and storage of our large bulk cargo or ‘awkward’ cargo such as long length carpets, large crated goods and other outsized cargo we handle on a regular basis, plus areas for our air, ocean and marine consolidation, and a new extended area for our UK and international courier shipments. Our air and ocean ETSF areas have now been combined to provide greater flexibility and invested in new weighing equipment to provide faster cargo turnaround. This is a really exciting development at the end of a very busy, and at times quite testing year.