Sara Loading Bay Specialists Ltd

It has been announced that sara LBS has supplied all the loading bay equipment for the new £6m Dalcross Distribution Centre at Inverness Airport Business Park (IABP). The centre is part of a sustained process of expansion and renewal for the Co-op’s convenience retail network throughout Northern Scotland.

Many industrial environments are chilled to significantly below the ambient climatic temperature and high speed shutter doors are the best way to maintain a clear division between inside and out. Louise Nurse, Sales and Marketing Manager for sara LBS (Loading Bay Solutions), has explained here that there is more to such installations than meets the eye. 

For warehouse and factory operators who want to combine the highest levels of insulation with the greatest speed and reliability, insulated roller shutter doors are quickly becoming the technology of choice. Nick Cox of sara LBS explores the latest technologies available and explains why they are steadily superseding the more traditional door solutions. 

Energy bills can soar in winter as we fight to keep the cold weather at bay. Louise Nurse, Sales and Marketing Manager for sara LBS looks at how heat loss in loading bays can be minimised and the other seasonal benefits of high speed doors. The days when employers could simply expect people to work in the cold are long gone. There is now legislation to protect employees from unacceptable practises and – more importantly – employers recognise that productivity is compromised when working conditions deteriorate.

The run up to Christmas is critical for many retailers. To service the public demand for their products, such retailers need excellent supply and logistics back up. Louise Nurse, Sales and Marketing Manager, sara Loading Bay Specialists, looks at the theory and practise of meeting this seasonal demand.

An airlock famously saved the life of astronaut Tim Kopra. Here on Earth the same concept is used on loading bays when there is a compelling need to isolate the internal atmosphere from the outside. In this article, Alan Ryder, Areas Sales Manager for sara LBS, considers airlocks in his daily life.

  Is it always necessary to fit a dock shelter to every loading bay, or can you do without and save the costs of both installation and maintenance? Nick Cox, Area Sales Manager with loading bay specialist sara LBS, looks at various options that are suitable for different applications and explains how they improve operations.

Hygiene, temperature control and process efficiency are all watch words in the food processing and food distribution industries. Guy Windle, Area Sales Manager of sara LBS, says high speed roller shutter doors can be essential in achieving all of these. Go into any food processing or distribution plant and the first thing you notice will probably be the drop in temperature as you enter. 

Often, loading bays need to be heated up or cooled down, mainly to protect stored goods and contrastingly to provide a comfortable working environment, but with large doors open for significant periods of time heating costs can be high. Louise Nurse of loading bay specialists, sara LBS, said it is natural for senior management to want to control this cost, but a practical rather than theoretical approach must be used.

In the past few years energy costs have sky rocketed and as they continue to, business owners and managers are keen to cut avoidable heat losses. Here, Nick Cox, Area Sales Manager for sara LBS (Loading Bay Specialists), explains how industrial doors are continuing to help save energy and boost productivity for warehouses and distribution centres.

Two new dock levellers have been installed at one of the UK’s largest food production facilities by sara LBS, replacing older units that were approaching the end of their design life and ensuring that demanding supermarket delivery schedules can be met. The factory employs around 200 people and has regularly invested in new plant and technology.

When you need to build new loading bays, the disruption that comes with it can be a daunting prospect for some owners and operators of logistics centres and manufacturing plants. An option that may be an attractive alternative is precast concrete loading bays, suggests Paul Rudge, Area Sales Manager with sara LBS.

It is not always that often that building projects run to plan, therefore contractors need to be flexible and ready to adapt to changing circumstances. Guy Windle, Area Sales Manager for sara LBS (Loading Bay Specialists) explained how his company’s proactive approach to installations helps main contractors maintain smooth and efficient progress.

When is a door not a door? This is not a trick question, as according to Nick Cox, a manager with sara LBS, the answer is when it is a high-performance business asset. For business premises and other work-related buildings, such as hospitals, schools, theatres and sports venues, doors must provide security against unauthorised access as well as fire safety, without compromising the efficient passage of people, products and equipment.

Loading bay equipment has been installed into a major distribution centre in Scotland, which includes dock levellers - from sara LBS as part of a project to upgrade facilities. The project is intended to double storage capacity and improve the flow of traffic through the area.

What do you do, when vehicle loading and unloading must be fast, efficient and reliable and warehouse space is actually at a premium? Loading bay pods that effectively extend the building may be the solution. Alan Ryder, Area Sales Manager at sara LBS (Loading Bay Specialists) looks at the advantages pods can bring to a busy logistics centre.

  Without an access ramp, it would be near impossible to load mobile plant, pallets and many other cargoes that are too heavy to lift into low loaders and other commercial vehicles. Good quality, long lasting ramps are carefully designed to meet a multitude of needs and are engineered to withstand the rigours of life on the road.

Dock shelters and seals play a big role in maintaining efficiency and saving energy in warehouses with internal loading/unloading bays. But with various options to choose from which is right for a given application? Guy Windle of sara LBS examines the relative merits of standard, retractable and inflatable dock shelters.

The thermally insulated roller shutter doors from sara LBS are also effective for acoustic attenuation, as has been proven at ABP Beef in Guildford, Surrey where they were used to make sure noise was not disturbing the neighbours. ABP Beef, part of ABP Food Group, is one of Europe’s largest privately-owned beef processors and produces high quality ultra-tender beef for the retail, food service and food processing sectors. 

When technology company Scintacor remodelled a building into a new headquarters in Cambridge, installation of a sara LBS insulated sectional door created a valuable workshop area from a space that was previous too cold in winter and too hot in summer. Three other doors from sara LBS also helped customise the building to meet Scintacor’s exact needs.