Aycliffe-based Stiller Warehousing and Dist-ribution has invested heavily in relocating its pallet distribution operation within its main site on Aycliffe Business Park. It has also taken on four new forklift drivers and three office employees as part of a restructuring which has enabled it to cope with an increase in demand.
Its overnight Palletline operation involves Stiller handling more than 1,600 pallets every day, carrying goods ranging from food stuffs and packing to cookware, building cladding and shopping trollies. Palletline had previously been run at a leased site a mile away.
After the family-run firm moved its pallet storage facility into its new warehouse – it created room to relocate its Palletline operation. More than £1.1m has been invested in the new warehouse and relocation of its pallet distribution operation, enabling Stiller to consolidate its two main operations into its head office site which has increased efficiency and improved communication.
“It has given us more room to grow and meet demand.” said the firm’s Commercial Manager Matthew Stiller. “Goods come off overnight, between 2am and 6am, from national trunking vehicles which can take up to 52 pallets, and they’re off-loaded, sorted in the early hours of the morning when everyone is tucked up in bed, and loaded onto smaller urban delivery vehicles which can take between six and 26 pallets.
Between 3pm and 6pm they bring customer’s goods back, to be sorted again onto trunking vehicles and sent out to destinations across the UK overnight.”
Stiller has appointed three new office staff, including distribution co-ordinator Steve Stones, from Darlington, and 23-year-old distribution clerk Josh McCartin, from Newton Aycliffe.
Former business admin apprentice Ryan Bailey, 22, who has been with Stiller for more than three years, has been promoted from transport operator to shift supervisor.
It used to take about 35 to 40 minutes for the trucks to come in and off-load, and drivers would often get stuck in a queue, but now Stillers have a one door in, one door out operation which has halved the amount of time it takes for drivers to get in and off-load.
Stiller’s latest outlay takes overall investment in the last two years to £5.6m after the firm purchased a fleet of 12 new vehicles in 2014, including two 12-tonne vehicles, two urban trailers and four long double-deck trailers, and brought in five new Iveco trucks earlier this year to accommodate a new £5m-a-year distribution and storage deal with worldwide food packaging firm Coveris Rigid.
Left to right: Josh McCartin, Ryan Bailey, Steven Stones
