LPR opens its depot doors at Sywell to showcase automation investment
Europe’s leading pallet pooling business, LPR (a division of Euro Pool Group), opened the doors to its Sywell depot, on Thursday 6 September, showcasing its latest investment in automation to customers and suppliers.
Working closely with logistics specialist XPO, LPR’s six-figure investment in its largest UK depot, has enhanced its cutting-edge facilities - upgrading the site to become fully automated.
While the automation itself doesn’t rely on sensors to indicate if a pallet is in need of repair, it does allow a single operator to sort 350+ pallets per hour and determine if the pallet is ready for reuse or requires repair.
The open day, which included a tour of the facility and demonstrations, revealed the impressive process behind pallet pooling and the quality assurance LPR provide to their customers, which benefits the entire supply chain.
Simon Wood, Operations Director for LPR UK and Ireland, commented: “Sywell has become the largest depot in Europe for LPR in terms of volume and is now servicing 28% of UK customer sites thanks to the automation. These upgrades signal LPR’s intent to continually improve efficiencies across its network, while ensuring safety and first-rate working environments.”
He continues: “In 2017, when the site was completely manual, we repaired over 600,000 pallets and sorted 2,600,000. Since the automation was installed in 2018, these numbers have grown by an average of 16% YTD. By the end of the year we expect to have repaired more than 770,000 and sorted a whopping 3,100,000 pallets.”
Further information on LPR is available at www.lpr.eu.