Toyota Material Handling Australia (TMHA) has helped engineer a unique solution to find the most efficient packing and picking methods for a company that is home to some iconic Australian wines.
When Rathbone Wine Group (RWG) moved to its new Port Melbourne distribution centre and headquarters five years ago the inner city location meant that space was at a premium.
In conjunction with its logistics arm, 14 Degrees Logistics, RWG's plans called for an extra-high 14-metre roof, allowing pallets to be stacked higher than usual.
Paul Viani, logistics manager for Rathbone Wine Group and 14 Degrees, says the difficulty lay in reaching the heights that would unlock the maximum storage capacity in the 4500 square metre facility.
"Obviously, the closer you get to the city there's less space available. With this site we had to try to maximise what was available to us, and that meant going up," he says.
"The problem is that good, safe picking equipment doesn't really reach as high as we needed.
"TMHA was able to supply us with a BT Vector-A Series Turret Truck which, at the time, was the only one in the country capable of reaching these heights," Mr Viani says.
"This Turret Truck reaches higher than any similar product we had available to us, and allowed us to add a seventh level of pallets - which gives us an extra 1,000 pallets of storage.
"That's an extra $3,000 to $4,000 of storage per week - or around $200,000 per year."
Another TMHA product that is enhancing the RWG business is a new, specially engineered Raymond 5200 Series Order Picker.
"With more than 10,000 cases heading out of the warehouse each week, anything that saves us time and makes it easier on our pickers is a huge benefit," Mr Viani says.
The versatility of the TMHA products isn't the only appealing aspect for RWG.
"The most important thing for us is that all of our TMH equipment is very rarely out of service," Mr Viani says.
"Combined with the regular monthly servicing and the strong aftersales support, reliability is just not an issue for us."
Rathbone Wine Group reaching new heights with their TMH forklift