Storax mobile racking was retrofitted into Chester Meats existing Congella facility in 2013. A new floor was laid, and capacity doubled over the previous fixed rack layout. By 2023 after 10 years of hard work, 2x 5750mm sections of the rear SG guide rail had come loose.
4 mobile bases were increasingly difficult to move and costly to maintain.
Damaged rail
SG Guide rail section
Replacing these special center-grooved rail sections was postponed several times due to the difficulty of replacing them at temperatures of around Minus 20 degrees Celsius.
In February, Barpro’s Eddie Ntontela, working together with Bruce Stott of Racking and Shelving KZN, quickly removed the two rear bays of 4 mobile bases and racking superstructure which allowed Luigi Finezzi of Strona Projects to break out the old rail and excavate sufficient space for new rail sections to be laid by Eddie’s crew.
Finally, Robin Morrall of Robex SA grouted the area around the rail with a fast drying specially formulated resin mixture. On the first occasion the resin didn’t take properly in the cold and the process was repeated, this time successfully. Thereafter the mobiles and racking were reinstated.
Carrying out extensive floor repairs at minus temperatures is always a challenge. Steven Shrewsbury, Chester’s Operations Manager, was happy to get the floor repairs completed so that the cold store could resume normal operations. ”