Chillout an Oxford Cold Storage Publication
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Chillout An Oxford Cold Storage publication Issue 18 – December 2013 Message from Management In this issue : Paul Fleiszig Message from Management New Activities and skills Transport & Training reports Achievements Welcome to the 2013 Oxford newsletter. This year has been O H & S Hatched and Matched another successful year for the Oxford Logistics Group. We have all Years of Service, and more ! met many challenges and taken a number of opportunities. This newsletter will cover some of the commercial and personal highlights for our ‘Oxford family’ for the year. 2013 has seen Oxford grow again. We completed our 13B extension in October on budget and with minimal delay. The new store holds about 23,000 pallets in two rooms. The 13B complex is built using the latest energy saving & operating technology. The key new feature is the implementation of mobile racking. This is a first for Oxford. The implementation gave us many challenges, which our engineering & IT teams in conjunction with our builders Vaughan Construction and racking providers & contractors Dematic, Storax, Barpro & One Stop Shelving overcame brilliantly. More details regarding the mobile racking & the other new features built into our new store can be found within this newsletter. We commenced 2013 with storage at capacity. We struggled to handle the storage volumes our customers wanted us to hold for them. Our Store Management and Staff managed the ‘over capacity’ issues extremely well. We maintained high levels of service for all our customers in very difficult circumstances. It is a credit to the professionalism & dedication of all our staff. We ran most of our stores at near capacity for a large part of the year. Capacity relief only came in September when we opened up the first chamber in our 13B extension. Incredibly we filled this room in just over two weeks! Our IT team has been extremely busy this year. In fact we should call 2013 the “year of the ‘EDI’” (Electronic Data Interchange). Over the year we completed an EDI required for the Fonterra transition to their new computer system (SAP). McCain also introduced SAP into their business, requiring us to complete a new EDI for their system. Peters Ice Cream came off the Nestle system and went onto its own ‘M3’ system requiring us to complete a new EDI for them as well. We also completed EDI’s for Unilever (Streets) and Simplot Chilled, and updated the Nestlé EDI to account for its Movenpick business. Currently we are working on EDI’s for Modern Baking, Heavens Bakehouse and NQR. In addition to all the EDI work, the IT team also changed how we manage our meat customers. We now capture & report on the full bar code of every carton we handle. This turned out to be a much bigger change than we first anticipated, as it effects most operations within our WMS (Warehouse Management System). On top of all this the IT team also integrated the new mobile racking system into our WMS, to ensure that the racking moves automatically and seamlessly with the orders being allocated to the reach trucks. Chillout Oxford Logistics Group Newsletter – December 2013 1 On the systems side of the business we introduced a virtualised server environment, upgraded our SAN (Storage Area Network) hardware, upgraded our phone system, upgraded all of our thin client hardware, upgraded our email server software, and overhauled and upgraded our LAN (Local Area Network) hardware. These are huge changes in the hardware & software technology we use in our business. These upgrades were done with very little disruption. Well done to Mark Fleiszig, Anthony Walshe, Neil Campbell & the rest of the IT team in getting through this massive work load so well. One of the big challenges for the year was to manage the introduction of the Carbon Tax. This tax has led to a significant increase in our electricity bills. Our engineering & maintenance teams have continued to implement a number of projects to reduce our energy consumption on site. The new 13B extension has been fitted out with the latest energy saving LED lighting, which produces excellent light with lower electricity consumption. The new store is also connected to our water harvesting system, which has substantially increased the volume of water we can capture and re-use. As always, Oxford will continue to implement energy efficiency and cost reduction projects. Management thanks Gabor Hilton, Frank Verzaci and their teams for their great efforts in getting these projects off the ground and for ensuring our refrigeration equipment keeps on performing optimally. Syd Cassidy & his team have continued their great work in keeping our forklifts and materials handling equipment up & going. We now have over 430 forklifts, reach trucks and pick trolleys on site. As the fleet ages, it has become a more challenging job to keep the fleet running. Well done to Syd & his team in keeping us all moving. Oxford management congratulate Grant Keating on winning the Victorian nomination for the Frank Vale Award. Despite representing Oxford & Victoria brilliantly at the RWTA national conference in Sydney, Grant did not win the national award. We can all be very proud with how Grant conducted himself and represented our company to the rest of the industry. Justin Anderson has now bedded in his new RTS (Radio Terminal Systems) team. RTS has continued to provide an extremely high level of support to all its clients (including Oxford). Next year is an important year for the RTS, as it plans to introduce some new products, and release upgrades for the longstanding Pikker & Tracer models. A business can only be successful with the support, hard work and loyalty of its staff. At Oxford we are able to maintain our high level of service to our customers because of the great effort by all our staff. Management thank all staff for their continued loyalty and hard work. The Fleiszig & Stern families wish all our staff and valued customers a very happy and safe festive season and look forward to a prosperous & happy new year. Rodney Fleiszig , our Human Resources Manager has this month successfully concluded our Enterprise Bargain Agreement with Oxford Cold Storage Staff. The new Agreement which operates from January 1, 2014 for three years was unanimously approved by all who voted. The co-operation and goodwill of all involved is greatly appreciated. Chillout Oxford Logistics Group Newsletter – December 2013 2 OXFORD’S NEW FREEZER EXTENSION SETS NEW STANDARDS The mobile racking is officially moved by Oxford’s Chairman, Dezso Stern with the help of Gabor Hilton, Gabor Fleiszig & Luis Fleiszig In September 2013 Oxford completed our most technically The store is designed to be extremely energy efficient. advanced freezer. The 23,200 pallet extension to Building 13 Maximum energy efficiency is achieved by: has consolidated Oxford Cold Storage’s position as the 22 nd largest cold storage company in the world (by storage • The use of PIR sandwich panels and assisted attic capacity - as ranked by IARW - the International Association ventilation of Refrigerated Warehouses. • All internal and external lights are solid state LED fixtures • Variable frequency drives on all evaporator and condenser This store is the first large cold store in Australia to use fans and screw compressors mobile racking. The 7,672 pallet mobile racking system was installed in part of the new building. The area used would The building was built in 7 months and was on budget and accommodate 5,748 pallets of fixed double deep racking. on time. Management thank Oxford’s preferred builder The mobile racking is arranged in 3 banks with one moving Vaughan Constructions and Oxford’s engineering and forklift aisle in each. The high storage density mobile racks maintenance staff. We also thank the international team move on rails embedded in the specially designed post who delivered & installed the racking system, One Stop tensioned freezer floor. The pallet bays automatically open Shelving from Melbourne, Dematic from Sydney, Barpro when an RF signal is received from Oxford’s Warehouse from South Africa and Storax from the UK who designed, Management System. The single deep mobile racks provide supplied and installed the mobile racking system. excellent product separation with very high storage density. The mobile racks are surrounded by safety light beams that prevent racking movements unless the forklift aisles are clear of people and machinery. The 11,000m² extensions includes 2 new chambers and an 18 metre wide refrigerated loading dock along the full length of the new construction. Vehicle unloading is through 10 fully enclosed hydraulic dock levellers fitted with inflatable airbags. Access to the loading dock is through airlocks with self-closing outside and inside doors. Pedestrian safety is enhanced by pedestrian walkways along all walls, flashing warning lights on all freezer and dock doors. The high speed freezer doors rise and automatically realign within the door tracks if they are hit by a forklift. Chillout Oxford Logistics Group Newsletter – December 2013 3 Flags were also implemented for our Tally Clerks STAGING AREAS when working in staging areas along Armco railing. Maggie Montagnese Not all the stores have the flags as this is a work in Oxford O H & S Manager progress as we implement Traffic Management specific to each store. Container labourers are a significant part of Oxford. Another year passes and once again the holiday Often staff work in containers with forklifts coming in season is upon us. We have had a very eventful year and out of containers to either pick up or drop off with the construction of the new Freezer 13B with pallets. We implemented a new procedure for state of the art mobile racking which is awesome to container labourers where they need to vacate the watch in operation.