Davicon has helped to play an instrumental role in the future distribution and logistics efficiency of John Lewis Department Stores division across the UK.
With the help of the growth of John Lewis Direct, the on-line business stream, the leading retailer has ambitious expansion plans and aims to significantly grow the size of the business in the coming years and has re-evaluated its supply chain to support this growth.
As a result, the division has invested in a new £45m distribution centre at Magna Park, Milton Keynes, that is due to come open in Summer 2009. The 60,000m2 facility sits on the A421 at Milton Keynes, just off Junction 13 of the M1.
Austrian firm Knapp was appointed as design and installation manager and, following a six way tender process, selected Davicon as an integral partner to take this £25m fit out contract to the next stage.
This involved engineers from Knapp and Davicon working closely with the John Lewis team to develop a more detailed bespoke design and installation process for the sophisticated automated system.
This included the integration of a 9,000 sq m mezzanine floor to run the entire length of the building as well as all the relative walkways, walkovers and other access to the entire tiered flooring area. The mezzanine, which now supports all the materials handling equipment, took more than five months to install, demonstrating the size and complexity of the distribution centre project.
Commenting on the appointment of Davicon, David James, UK Managing Director of Knapp said: “Normally all procurement contracts are co-ordinated from our Austrian head office. However because of the magnitude of this project we needed an extremely credible UK supplier who was fully up to speed with legislation, statutes and a current working knowledge of the marketplace.
This was the key criteria in our decision and Davicon, as one of the industry’s most respected mezzanine design and manufacturers, was an obvious choice. Its engineers were able to add technical and knowledge know how in a number of innovative ways to the original designs, adding invaluable expertise to the project.”
Davicon Mezzanine Floors
Tel: 01384 572851
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