An Atlet Omni DCR man-rising combination pallet stacker/order picker was Liebherr-Great Britain’s choice for its new spare parts warehouse in Biggleswade, United Kingdom.

Forklifts from three manufacturers were evaluated before Liebherr selected the Atlet Omni, which is the only narrow aisle forklift used in its new warehouse.

Warehouse manager Dave Totman said his company chose the narrow aisle forklift "because of the space (and) it also leaves more room for expansion on the same site in the future".

Liebherr has adopted a very narrow aisle in the new warehouse, thus minimising floor space while increasing overall storage capacity.

The old warehouse had employed traditional low-level stacking and picking but at Biggleswade, narrow aisle racking was introduced and the height of the storage area increased five-fold compared with the previous operation.

The new warehouse can hold more than 20,000 line items in a building that occupies a smaller footprint than its predecessor. Items are stored in 1000 pallet locations arranged along aisles of nine-high racking and in 1700 shelf picking locations on a mezzanine floor at the side of the warehouse.

"This is not a fast picking environment and we were more concerned with truck reliability and load sensitivity," Totman said. "We bought from Atlet on service recommendation – it’s the only truck so it has to be reliable."

The truck can pick orders from anywhere in the racking with its rising cab and a diagonal lift capability enables the operator to arrive at a required location in the shortest time.

The truck’s control centre is ergonomically laid-out for efficient picking, with a spacious cab area and a control panel adjustable to suit the driver’s preference.

A rotating and traversing fork carriage enables the Omni DCR to stack and retrieve to either side of the aisle, and to pick up pallets from the front when free-ranging.

Liebherr-Great Britain is part of a global organisation that manufactures an extensive range of cranes, earth moving equipment, excavators, wheel loaders, crawler tractors, mining trucks and concrete mixers.

The company relocated its UK head office, heavy plant engineering maintenance and spare parts warehouse operations to a nine-acre green field site in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, after outgrowing its facility in Hatfield.