UK based and operating on a national and international scale Plastic Mouldings Northern Ltd (PMN) works with and supplies to a portfolio of industries and supply chains of leading manufacturers including Nissan, Caterpillar, JCB, Bentley and Toyota.
Innovation and collaboration are at the heart of PMN and the team have a strong reputation for revolutionising operations with their innovative, design-led solutions saving time, resources and enhancing productivity.
A recent project saw PMN work with Yorkshire Stainless Ltd (part of the AMEG family of companies), the leading stockholder of stainless steel Pipe, Tube, Fittings and Flanges, supplying all sectors across the UK. Yorkshire Stainless Ltd (YSL) recently invested in 10 x Kardex Shuttles, which feature an enclosed shelf-based storage system designed to increase capacity in a more compact footprint. These Kardex Shuttles have a total of 550 metal trays for up to 500Kg of components per tray.
YSL needed a solution to enhance the operations as they had tried wooded and metal dividers, but the wood solution would leave bits in the trays potentially damaging the Kardex Shuttles, the metal was too heavy (120 kg per tray using up too much of the 500Kg capacity) and too expensive.
PMN were approached and with their reputation for the production of vacuum formed plastic parts, which sees the company supply high quality and often very intricate moulded parts to an array of industries the team at PMN were able to work closely with YSL to find a solution.
Through the project PMN needed to utilise their innovative capabilities to supply lightweight plastic divider sets with the flexibility to have multiple configurations allowing a different set up in each tray. The solution was over 14k off 4.5mm Natural PP divider strips in eight different sizes, with slots at 107mm and 114mm centres, longest 1825mm.
The revolutionary solution led to a host of benefits including the creation of over 120 divider configurations to handle over 100k parts, the pick rate reduced from an average of 20 mins per part to less than 90 seconds and a reduced number of industrial units needed from eight to three, therefore saving on rent and rates.
YSL also benefited from better H&S as they removed FLT movement from the factory and eliminated picking from a height in traditional racking, they now use a paperless system for order picking and due to the success of the collaboration YSL stress that the introduction of the Kardex Shuttles and PMN’s plastic dividers have “revolutionised” their operation.
Alongside their vacuum forming operation PMN are one of the UKs leading suppliers of plastic packaging solutions including euro containers across a wide range of industries. Established for over 20 years the expansive site stores over 100,000 products across three acres and 65,000 square feet of indoor storage.