The world’s largest wine distributor relies on its fleet of BT Reflex E-series reach trucks to carefully handle its precious one-tonne loads at heights up to 11 metres.

At its huge UK site, Constellation Park, in Avonmouth, near Bristol, Constellation Europe bottles wines imported by tanker from Australia, Africa and the Americas and distributes them across the UK and mainland Europe.

At the heart of this operation is a fleet of BT warehouse trucks from Toyota Material Handling UK, including 18 BT Vector VCE150A man-up narrow aisle trucks and ten BT Reflex RRE250E reach trucks, which service Constellation Park’s 84,000 pallet places. When full, the warehouse holds enough wine to fill 74 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

The bottling lines supply fully packed and wrapped pallets, which are placed in picking and despatch (P&D) positions at the end of the warehouse racking by the BT Reflexes. The BT Vectors then collect these and put them away at the appropriate location until they are designated for despatch.

Some export products are put away directly by the BT Reflexes in standard wide-aisle racking but the majority are kept in the high-density narrow-aisle section.
Once an order is raised a BT Vector will be used to collect the pallet and place it at a P&D location at the far end of the racking. From here a BT Reflex will be used to lower it and move it to the neighbouring marshalling area in front of the goods-out loading bays. BT Levio LPE240 powered pallet trucks take care of the final loading process.

Constellation Park was always planned for this type of operation and the BT Vector and BT Reflex were chosen for being the best available, according to assistant warehouse manager Howard Cobb, “Our pallets are all one ton, going up to 11 metres, so it’s very important to us that we have the best trucks.
“The tilting cab action is essential to our work. It means the driver gets a clear view of the fork tips without having to strain his neck, with clear benefits for both safety and productivity.”

Another key feature of BT Reflex that Constellation Europe relies on is Transitional Lift Control or TLC. This significant innovation on the latest BT Reflex models ensures that the transitions between mast stages when lifting and lowering are completely smooth, without any shocks or juddering. A further advantage of the technology is significantly better lift and lower rates – a key influence on overall productivity.

Howard Cobb continues, “with TLC I’m confident that the pallet will come down safely from 11 metres.”

All of Constellation Park’s fleet is supplied by Toyota Material Handling UK on a long-term rental programme that includes two full-time resident engineers. This has the advantage that – not only can any breakdowns be responded to quickly – but that breakdowns are all the more unlikely due to the ease with which preventative maintenance is possible.

“We are a 24/7 operation but truck downtime is not something I have to worry about,” Howard Cobb adds. “We are very glad to have the BT Reflex on our site.”