A fruitful partnership in Sheerness

The busy Port of Sheerness has recently acquired a new fleet of over 150 Linde fork lift trucks and other equipment, ranging from a simple hand pallet truck to a 45 tonne capacity reach stacker.

Linde and Medway Ports in Sheerness - a fruitful partnership.

The busy Port of Sheerness has recently acquired a new fleet of over 150 Linde fork lift trucks and other equipment, ranging from a simple hand pallet truck to a 45 tonne capacity reach stacker.

Medway Ports (the owner of the Port of Sheerness), had an array of requirements for the contract which Linde Material Handling South East met with efficient and cost-effective solutions.

Medway Ports at Sheerness has been trading for over 40 years with the site formerly being used as a Royal Navy dockyard.

The port itself is steeped in history and is ideally placed on the River Medway, which is one of the UK's main shipping lanes.

Medway Ports operates a commitment to excellent service to its customers working in close conjunction with its clients to meet their needs.

It also has a strong health and safety culture.

The port dominates the UK market for importing fresh produce, with almost one million tonnes of fruit arriving at Sheerness every year.

There are four chilled stores keeping the produce cool with Linde H 20 trucks transferring the pallets from the chill stores to the distribution vehicles.

Medway Ports also moves a large volume of forest products, including paper reels, bales of pulp, timber and chipboard.

The eight 15 tonne Linde H 150 diesel counterbalance trucks are used for the heavier bulk loads while the H 50 five tonne and H 80 eight tonne diesel trucks handle the high value reels using specialised paper roll clamps.

As the port accepts most types of cargo, sometimes at short notice, Linde has agreed as part of its contract to supply any specialist equipment or attachment that might be required.

Although the Port of Sheerness is not a major container port, there is some requirement to move containers so Medway has purchased a second Linde Reach Stacker to meet the current volume of ISO containers moving through the port.

Bill Windsor, engineering manager at Medway Ports comments that the relationship with Linde is more than just a simple supplier-customer arrangement.

" It is a long-term business partnership because for us reliable and responsive service support is absolutely vital so we needed to work with an organisation who could provide us with the quality levels and commitment we required".

The two companies have worked closely together throughout the decision-making process to ensure that the new fleet would enhance the efficiency of all the current handling processes at the port as well as coping with increases in volume as the business grows further.

David Bunting, Linde South East's sales director and the operations director, Steve Shakespeare, have spent time with Bill and his team to establish a complete understanding of the materials handling requirements at the port in order to develop solutions that would meet the stringent demands of a 'best practice' working environment.

This is the second contract that Medway Ports has awarded to Linde - the first consisted of 65 fork lift trucks and the creation of a fully equipped workshop for on-site maintenance and repair.

The new contract will see the on-site workshop treble in size and the shifts increase to cover seven days a week with 11 Linde staff managing the maintenance of the equipment, changing attachments and allocating fork lift trucks to operators.

This requires precise scheduling to ensure that the right handling equipment meets the ships at the right time and with the right attachments to handle the cargo.

This close-working partnership ensures that Medway Ports achieves its objective of consistently delivering excellent customer service.

Linde consolidated the existing handling equipment with the new fleet, which provides optimum reliability as well as the latest in ergonomic comfort and high performance.

As part of the new contract, Medway Ports also needed a solution which would enable it to cope with surges in cargo volumes.

Inevitably at times, several ships will arrive in port simultaneously, which can cause bottlenecks.

The Linde solution for these peak demand periods was to offer the flexibility of providing part of the new fleet on a 'pay as you use' basis enabling Medway Ports to have immediate access to trucks only when required.

These trucks are painted in a vivid yellow so that the port managers can easily identify these units from the core fleet.

The H 50 and H 80 diesel trucks transfer paper reels through the stores for onward shipping using 'intelligent' reel clamp attachments.

These clamps automatically grip the paper with the precise amount of pressure required without causing damage.

The clamps rotate for maximum flexibility.

Bill Windsor comments, "The intelligent clamps are exactly what we needed for handling the reels - they give our customers the assurance that we will be looking after their valuable paper reels with the utmost care".

Other attachments purchased include double reel clamps and extra large clamps to handle bales of pulp.

Bill continues, "Service is vital to our business and we have been very impressed with David and Steve's dedication to this contract".

"The comprehensive resources and reputation of Linde gave us confidence and we have been very pleased with the results".

""The trucks can often be working 24 hours a day so we knew we needed a robust solution to our requirements.

Having thoroughly tested the demonstration units and identified bespoke specifications to suit our needs, we feel that we have acquired the best materials handling solutions for the Port of Sheerness"".

"Dave Shoebridge, Medway Ports engineering superintendent, comments, "Linde South East has also developed quarterly user group meetings where we discuss issues and share knowledge on working practices with other Linde customers.

We are pleased to join these meetings and learn about other organisations' best practice in handling goods.

This is another example of how Linde has brought innovative ideas into the partnership and has demonstrated to us that they listen to the needs of their customers and know how to bring this expertise together to our advantage"".

"David Bunting comments, "The range of equipment supplied to Medway Ports is a perfect example of Linde's materials handling experience and expertise in action.

This has been an extremely interesting project to work on and we are pleased to be able to continue providing support to Medway Ports".

""With a Linde workshop on site, we are directly alongside the customer at all times, implementing maintenance and utilisation schedules and providing support whenever it is needed".

Medway Ports at Sheerness has put all its 300 operators through familiarisation training and with the new fleet up and running, this business partnership looks set to bear even more fruit.

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