North Shore Timber increases  efficiency with Hubtex forklifts.

NS Timber Pty Ltd is one of Sydney’s leading timber merchants and has been using Hubtex Australia exclusively since 1997. Trading as North Shore Timber and Hardware, the business has been operating for over 44 years, progressing from a modest retail outlet at Willoughby, to its current operation of modern, fully undercover timber warehouses at six strategic locations.

In each of North Shore Timber’s smaller branches there is one Hubtex Multidirectional Sideloader in operation, whereas in the larger branches there are two or three, all of which have the exact same specifications. The stores are situated in inner city locations where space is a premium and every millimetre counts, so it was imperative that a solution was found to enable fast and efficient picking of the products while at the same time using whatever space was available.

Picking orders is the main part of the North Shore business, with either the staff or customers needing to go into the aisles to select individual lengths of timber directly from the racks and place them onto trolleys in order to make up the orders. The customers like this system as it allows them to get in and out quickly, however, in order for this to succeed, there needs to be the right amount of easily accessible pick faces available. It is here, that the Hubtex ML25 has proved the ideal solution for North Shore Timber.

Hubtex is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of specialised electric multidirectional sideloaders, order picking solutions and special equipment for handling long, difficult andbulky goods and, as a result, offers solutions that are tailor made to suit a customer’s individual needs. Working closely with North Shore, the recommendation from Hubtex was for a ML25 Sideloader built with a short 770mm platform that enables the machine to work in very narrow aisles of only 1650mm between the rails.

It also meant that North Shore could significantly increase the amount of racking in each branch. The low platform height of the ML25 allows easy order picking from the bottom three levels of the racking, and when the picking location is depleted the operator uses the Hubtex to lift down a bulk pack from above, slot it into the picking location, cut the straps and it is then ready to pick from.

Eastgarden’s store manager, Joe Zito, says, “We have been working with Bill Parry and the Hubtex team since 1997 and have been impressed with the high level of service, and the quality and performance of the Hubtex machines. In fact, the first machine we purchased is still in operation at one of our branches.

“Before we opted for Hubtex, we were using racking that was 1200mm wide, as opposed to the 760mm we now operate with, which meant that we were wasting a significant amount of space along with having limited pick faces. Having the Hubtex Multidirectional Sideloader in operation at all six North Shore branches means we have certainly saved a considerable amount of space, time and money.”

The Hubtex ML27 has a 770mm wide, low level platform with a 1650mm inside guide rail dimension. It has multidirectional steering for greater manoeuvrability in confined areas and low running cost ac technology, no pollution, heat or noise.