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Toyota has Forklift Solutions for Darrell Lea
Darrell Lea
01/04/2010
Darrell Lea Chocolate Shops Pty Ltd leases up to 40 pieces of material handling equipment from across the TMHA forklift range during peak production and distribution times.
Its needs range from loading cartons of liquorice into containers for export to moving heavily machinery items during regular plant maintenance.
Leased equipment includes BT reach trucks and stackers, Raymond pallet trucks and order pickers, and Toyota gas and battery electric counter-balance forklifts.
The highly seasonal nature of Darrell Lea's business - and the fact its manufacturing and national distribution centres are 35km apart - create special challenges, according to national logistics manager Shane Lincoln.
Darrell Lea's factory is in the southern Sydney suburb of Kogarah, with its national distribution centre at Ingleburn, close to the M5 Motorway. The company has 80 retail stores nationally.
The entire distribution chain - from factory to warehouse to distribution around Australia - is temperature-controlled between 15 and 18 degrees Celcius.
According to Shane Lincoln, TMHA's extensive product range, coupled with the flexibility of leased equipment, have helped Darrell Lea meet its material handling challenges.
"Darrell Lea is a very seasonal business," Shane Lincoln says. "The peak season is Easter, and it begins eight or nine weeks out from the actual weekend. We ship upwards of 100,000 cartons a week during the peak of the 4-5 week distribution cycle."
TMHA helped Darrell Lea in the design of racking. It modified machines to suit Darrell Lea's special needs, such as the six-metre racking at its 10,000 square metre warehouse.
As Shane Lincoln explained: "Toyota Material Handling modified the safety frames on the BT high-reach trucks so they fit into our drive-in racking.
"It also helped source special forklift attachments that have saved us 8-10 man hours when loading 40ft containers for export.
"Toyota helped us source forklift attachments for slip-sheet loading. Toyota went to a supplier, fitted the attachments to the machine and did some trials.
"We've been able to change our forklifts fairly quickly and slip-sheet our containers, which is a great cost saving to us.
"With the slip-sheet method, we can now load 200 cartons in minutes, as opposed to the hours it took before.
"TMHA has also tailored the machines to meet our specialised OH&S needs. The high-reach trucks have settings for the different levels, so the operator knows the level of his tynes. We also limit the speed of the forklifts around the warehouse."
