Intertex Creates Five-Star Tire Hotel for Delorge
Westbrook, ME (PRWEB) May 17, 2016 -- Many car dealers are increasingly focusing on the service side of the business in order to stabilize trade. In doing so, the seasonal tire change is playing an ever more important role. At the Belgian car dealer Delorge, in the city of Hasselt, the tire service has gone from being an instrument purely designed to establish customer loyalty to a lucrative source of additional business. This has been made possible by a new automated storage and retrieval solution from Intertex, the industry partner of intralogistics supplier Kardex Remstar.
There is no legal requirement to fit winter tires in Belgium. However, since a growing number of Belgians drive to Germany and France for winter sports, the demand for tire changes and storage has grown considerably over the last five years. Delorge, authorized dealer for VW, Audi and Skoda, has taken account of this development. Two storage units from Intertex have been integrated at the location in Hasselt since the beginning of 2015. Based on the goods to person principle, the goods stored in the Intermat unit are conveyed to the person at the touch of a button, allowing car dealers to benefit from fast access to stored goods. But lack of space was also a problem at Delorge. Properties are very expensive in Hasselt, the prosperous capital city of the Belgian province of Limburg. When Delorge built a new building location about two years ago, the car dealer wanted to remain on the outskirts of the city despite the high real estate prices. The car dealership had to remain visible and easily accessible for its customers.
With seven locations in total, Delorge is one of the biggest car dealers in Belgium. In Hasselt, 6,600 summer and winter tires, new ties and alloy wheels are stored on a footprint measuring less than 1,506 square feet. That’s enough tires for 1,650 vehicles. Yet the 65 feet deep “tire hotel” is not even full. Around 40 percent of the storage capacity is still available, which means Delorge is well prepared for future growth.
Delorge has been using a Shuttle XP 500 Vertical Lift Module (VLM) from Kardex Remstar for storing spare parts for quite some time. Marc Willen, regional sales manager at Kardex Remstar in Belgium, suggested a more efficient way of handling tires with an automated storage solution. At the time, Delorge was having to contract an external company to manage its tire storage operation due to a lack of space. This resulted in complex work processes, long distances and long wait times for customers. Now the car dealer can not only offer its customers top service at competitive prices, but also generates sales in this service area. Owner Peter Guelinchx says, “Now only a tenth of time previously spent on the tire service is needed. Logistics is no longer a worry.”
The tire set is retrieved from the Intermat at the fitting station. The tires are stored away by license plate and vehicle identification number (VIN). The customer’s own software shows when the tires have been placed in storage and retrieved as well as how old they are. The changed and checked tired set is stored away in the same location. The Intermat’s goods to person principle ensures the employees can work ergonomically. Anyone who is familiar with conventional storage situations with pallets or racks will appreciate an automated solution: no searching, bending, stooping or reaching for stored items.
“The tire hotel is certainly one of the biggest we have installed to date,” says sales manager Marc Willen. “Also available are economically attractive solutions for smaller tire hotels. Here, too, the payback period is generally less than a year.”
Kardex Remstar, LLC, a company of the Kardex Group is a leading provider of automated storage and retrieval systems for manufacturing, distribution, warehousing, offices and institutions. For information about our dynamic storage solutions, call 800-639-5805 or visit http://www.kardexremstar.com.
Chelsea Tarr, Kardex Remstar, LLC, http://www.kardexremstar.com, +1 800-639-5805, [email protected]
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