SI OST I NORGE!
(SAY CHEESE IN NORWAY)!

In winter, night time temperatures in Trondheim, Norway, can reach -40ºC - cold enough to freeze any food! But even here, only 400km from the arctic circle, chilled food storage requires controllable, and constant temperatures.

An ambitious project by a Norwegian Dairy Processing Company, aimed to provide an ultra-modern processing and storage facility in Trondheim.

Their high density facility is based around STORAX world famous mobile racking. A carefully planned layout, using a combination of mobile and drive-in racking, achieved very high densities of storage for over 13,000 pallets of processed dairy product at temperature ranges from +3 ºC to -28 ºC.

Storax Racking Systems were awarded the contract to supply and install all the storage equipment only after the Norwegian company and their consultants had made a very detailed study and examination of the mobile racking systems available on the European market.

Storax were able to demonstrate considerable experience in providing high quality mobile racked storage systems, which could be reliably used in high activity environment at low temperatures.

This installation is 7 levels high with a double bay load of 42 tonnes and a top storage beam of 9300mm from the floor, Storax were able to show that they already had installations working for many years, which matched this customer needs.

The facility consists of three major storage areas, the first is a chill store running at +1º C to +3ºC, which holds 7000 pallets on STORAX mobile racking, stored 7 levels high.

The second is a cold store running at -28 ºC, having a capacity of 6222 pallets. This store is also 7 levels high and stores dairy products.

The third area consists of an additional 6 temperature controlled storage chambers with an aggregate capacity of 1519 pallets, which is equipped with drive-in and static racking.

These chambers are used for order picking and storage for special dairy products. The whole complex is built to exceed EEC requirements.

COMPUTER CONTROL
The storage system starts right at the warehouse door. When pallets arrive, the computerised stock management system prints their labels and selects the optimum location. The computer then liaises by radio to the fleet of fork lift trucks, plotting the optimum route. At the same time the computer liaises directly with the STORAX central processors so that on arrival at the storage location, all the truck driver has to do is deposit the pallet.

In this application the pallets are transferred from the dock area to the racks in one movement by fork truck. An example of a STORAX installation where the transfer is done in part by conveyor can be found in Case Study No. 2.

The normal STORAX mode of operation is to be controlled directly from the stock management computer (WMS), three further levels of operation exist namely full STORAX operation from truck keypad, full STORAX operation from rack mounted pushbuttons and finally individual rack control for maintenance access, thus catering for every eventuality.

STORAX have considerable experience in providing remote control aisle selection facilities that are safe in operation.

STORAX is found in many industries ranging from steel works, through cold stores, automotive plants and laboratories, to bank vaults. STORAX mobile pallet racking is designed specifically for loads at any temperature from -30ºC to +70ºC, and for loads as varied as bundles of steel, car bodies and rolls of fabric.

STORAX being modular, versatile and flexible, can be tailor-made to store any product.