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Ridgeons Forest Products' new warehouse has been in use for only just over a month, but it is already making its mark on operations.

The 59x42m building at the company's timber plant in Herringswell, Suffolk has the capacity to hold more than 600 full packs of timber, or 2,500m³ of finished stock, and expands Ridgeons' existing undercover capacity.

"We have a 12-acre site and have an extensive range of buildings along with two mills and low and high-pressure treatment plants but we were outgrowing our undercover storage," said general manager Jem Slee.

"We've seen a very satisfactory growth in our business and we needed more undercover space to store both sawn joinery material and finished goods."

When it came to launching the tender process, Ridgeons' criterion was simple: it needed covered cantilever racking to store sawn timber and finished products.

County Derrin-based Sperrin Metal, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, won the contract and supplied and installed 641 linear metres of cantilever racking, and finished the exterior in linseed oil-impregnated timber cladding.

"We were very keen to get away from a building of metal sheets and use something we know a bit about," said Mr Slee.

The racking provides the structure for the building and, at 6m high, rather than the standard 5.4m, it offers more storage capacity.

"We're confined to a 12-acre site so going higher provides extra storage on a smaller footprint," said Mr Slee.

Adjustable arms on the racking was also an important feature. "As pack sizes change we're able to use the adjustable arms," said Mr Slee.

"In our older buildings we have fixed arms which limit what stock can be placed. The adjustable arms give us far greater flexibility."

To make full use of the extra height Ridgeons replaced two existing sideloaders with two new Lancer Bulmer diesel-powered sideloaders with a 6m reach. The new machines have three built-in cameras positioned to cover the back, the offside area and the fork carriage.

"We chose Lancer Bulmer because of the spec and their willingness to work with us to get the correct specification, the quality of the machine, and they were competitive," said Mr Slee.

Ridgeons plans eventually to change its existing fleet of sideloaders to high-reach machines.

The new building has also given Ridgeons the opportunity to change its product storage and handling process, introducing what Mr Slee calls a silo approach.

Ridgeons effectively has two customer bases - the company's own 25 merchant branches in East Anglia, which it supplies with the full range produced at Herringswell, from sawn carcassing, treated timber and special sawn products, to PAR and mouldings; and external customers, for which the main products are PAR and mouldings.

The silo approach is a stock replenishment system where warehouse space is allocated to one product, from sawn material through to the finished product.

"We used to have separate sawn timber and finished product areas but this is more efficient," said Mr Slee. "When the sawn product arrives on our site it's unloaded and placed, and allocated against what it will be machined into.

Our pickers are not having to go to a separate location and find the right timber to take it to the mill; it comes from the place it goes back to.

"We're effectively always topping up our allocations with either raw material or finished goods so the rotation of the product is far better."

It's still early days for the new warehouse but Ridgeons is feeling the benefits. "We're able to hold far more finished stock, making it available for our sales teams," said Mr Slee.

"We're able to provide a linear supply of selected product which will increase the timber range at some of our smaller branches, while reducing the amount of slower moving stock at others."