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Cold Stores for Africa

Perhaps motivated by the shockingly high percentage of fresh produce that never makes it to the table in developing economies, a number of companies are now offering “instant” freezer stores, some of which can be powered by PV panels. Mostly they consist of new or recycled insulated freezer containers coupled to PV panels. This sounds good, and can work although I have understood that refrigerated containers can only maintain temperatures of around minus 18 degrees C if the doors are kept closed and any incoming product has a core temp of at least minus 20 degrees C. Moreover, the useable storage volume of a container is not great, especially when one needs access to multiple product lines and maneuvering palletized product inside them is just about impossible. With these constraints in mind, Barpro Storage has designed a freezer store with the utilization of the freezer volume as the prime objective. The freezer size is 14.200 meters long by 12.022 meters wide and 8.00 meters high and uses the new Kingspan Modularis system of freezer store construction that does not require an external steel structure. The Insulated panels are made from Kingspan’s microcell quadcore material which gives industry leading thermal performance and can be erected on suitable foundations in as little as three days. The panels, at 200mms thick have a heat flow of 5 watts per meter 2 at a heat difference of 55 Degrees Celsius. Refrigeration The R2845 refrigeration system supplied by Cape Town based MRE Refrigeration incorporates 3x 25KWR compressors with air cooled condenser units which can take 30 tons of product per day arriving with a core temperature of minus 10 degrees C, while maintaining an air temperature of Minus 20 degrees C. Maximum power usage is 140 amps. Lights Lighting, supplied by PM Systems, uses sliding 250 watt metal halide lights each with their own plug for easy servicing. These lights come on only in the mobile racking’s open aisle giving just over 220 Lux at ground level. In the gangway there are 2 100watt LED fittings also with easy access fittings. Maximum. Power usage is 4 amps. Floor The final wearing floor supplied by Melt Wahl Concrete Services is designed to take the increased rail point loads imposed by mobile racking and includes cast in 150mms thick kerbs. While this would take just over a week to complete, it will need a month to cure and another 2 weeks to bring to temperature. Every installation would require an initial engineering visit to assess the ground conditions. Storage Solution The Storax mobile racking supplied by Barpro Storage, gives a storage capacity of 208 pallets nominal each of 1000kgs gross. Every pallet position can be accessed within 1.5 minutes which makes Storax especially suitable for the storage of multiple products. Maximum power usage is 4 amps. An alternative racking solution is the Storax Ranger, which increases the storage capacity to 280 pallets but reduces accessibility to every pallet location. While a chilled anteroom or loading bay is advisable so as to reduce the levels of warm humid air entering the freezer chamber either together with or as an alternative to a high-speed door. Assuming the civil work is completed and ready to take the Kingspan panels the freezer room could be erected and operational in 8 weeks. The order period to get the components on site would vary depending on location but should be within 16 weeks, reduced for a location in the Cape Town area. Cost wise in Cape Town one could budget on R3.5M complete $292,000, but excluding the civil works. The cost of installations elsewhere would depend on location. The team is already working on costing a 400 pallet store designed primarily for frozen chicken. Contact James if you have any comments or ideas james@barpro.co.za or on 021 552 9190 Or leave us a message [gravityform id=”16″ title=”true” description=”true”] Read more: What’s so different about cold store floors? Read more: Can mobile racking work in FMCG stores? Read more: The Strange History of Insulated Cold Store Panels

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Can mobile racking work in FMCG stores?

Storax mobile racking has long established itself as a popular option – indeed the system of choice – for high-density storage efficiency, with well over 250 installations in the last 20 years in SA alone. Most of these have been in Cold and Freezer Store applications – quite logically since this is the most expensive type of facility to both build, maintain, and run, meaning that maximum usage of volume is vital. However, it is a commonly held belief that the concept will not work in general warehousing situations, such as fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), since it is not ‘fast enough’. Unfortunately this is a view held by many of our leading consultants. This is often – though obviously not always – a misconception. Admittedly the average FMCG warehouse moves product in and out at a far greater pace than the normal freezer store, but the argument is also used that mobile racks do not lend themselves to simultaneous order picking. This second contention should not even be a consideration, since although many operators have pallet handling and picking happening in the same access aisle, this is not simply bad practice but, in most countries, strictly illegal in terms of safety legislation. The contention that the racks will not move fast enough to create the aisles where needed is very simply overcome by intelligent warehouse management whereby WM communicates with the RT operator to inform him of his route, and using his cab-mounted RF remote control he is able to ensure the correct aisle is open pretty much by the time he gets there. As far as pallet load handling is concerned, consider this: The product throughput speed (in and out) of the warehouse is governed by many issues, but is ultimately limited by the number of reach-trucks in operation. Accordingly the warehouse operator will use the number of RTs that his throughput demands. If he needs two machines working constantly, why have more than two aisles? All others are just wasted space that could be utilised for additional capacity. Storax mobile racking utilises additional warehouse space leaving one aisle open for a forktruck Imagine a typical warehouse with palletised goods on racking 6 or 7 high, with 12 runs of racking. He needs only 2 machines to handle the throughput, but has 11 aisles permanently open. If this racking was mobile, split up as 2 banks of 6 with only two movable aisles opening as and where needed for access, he would reduce the space needed for racking by up to 50%. Alternatively he could store nearly double the quantity of product in the same area. Say two banks of 12 runs with two moving aisles. If he needs 3 RTs, the layout will be designed accordingly with perhaps 3 banks of 8 runs with 3 aisles; or for 4 machines 4 banks of 6 with 4 aisles. Obviously this is an over-simplification, and there are definite limits to this argument, but the principle holds. There are many other, perfectly good, systems available for high-density pallet storage, including our own Ranger RF shuttle, but only Storax mobiles enable full selective access to any pallet in the whole system at any time. Discuss your needs with Barpro before making expensive decisions, perhaps based on not being fully informed about the full range of possibilities, and we’ll use our extensive experience to advise on all aspects of your new facility, from the earliest planning stages through to completion. [gravityform id=”10″ title=”true” description=”true”]