2) Foundations
These simply fall into 5 groups:-
Block

Piled

Rafted

Rock

Strip
Block and strip are probably the cheapest with rock, rafted and piled following up.

3) Above Groundworks
Anything that you can see from the slab (floor) upwards, canopies, portal frame buildings or factory prepared structures.

4) Access and Natural Light
Windows, doors and rooflights.

5) Servicing
Supply of power and water.   Removal of waste (and ‘run off’ water)

6) Insulation
All materials to prevent heat loss through the walls, roof or floor.

7) Fitting out

The installation of:-
Services

Communications Systems

Welfare Systems

Administration System

Access Systems (Lifts)

Door Schedules

Lighting

Furniture

Heating

Office and Process Equipment

Alarms and Security
For every key area we have specialists.

This includes engineers, trades, designers, professionals, manufacturers and installers.

2)  Design the operation first and the building second.

3)  Make sure that the land has permission for change of use BEFORE you buy it.  The conveyance may not reveal this.

4)  Never accept only one valuation.  They can vary by up to 50% more than you expect.

5)  Think about traffic flow and volumes.  The Local Authority will not let you block arterial connections.

6)  The slab is not the foundation.  Its thickness and make up are very important, more important than the building.

7)  The most important and valuable aspect is the space you create.  The more flexible it is, the more appeal it will have and the greater the value.

2)    Design support included.
You will be connected into a network of engineers, designers and manufacturers at no extra cost.

3)    Free advice.
You will be hot linked to many other professionals, specialists and trades to speed things along.

4)    Trusted network.

All our supply and support networks are already trusted quality assured people and businesses with established reputations and track records.

5)    Guaranteed return.

As you are directly engaging us you will automatically make savings on purchases for which you would have otherwise paid full rates. These extend to many factories and manufacturing plants world wide that we have visited, assessed and worked with to give you choices and options not available any where else. This has been minimally a 5 times return on our costs to our clients.

6)    Experienced operatives.

Knowing what to do is a very important part of the task. We know the job from the ground up, we understand financial viability and how to achieve it.  This delivers practical and immediate solutions to real job stoppers, for example:-
a.    MONEY ISSUES – Knowledge of  grants for additional funding and how to improve valuations for better funding options.
b.    NET WORTH – Resolving land issues to improve value.
c.    CORRECT SPECIFICATIONS – In depth knowledge of construction techniques to cut costs.
d.    AVOIDING MISTAKES -The best order of events to minimise risk exposure.
e.    AVOIDING REFUSALS – An informed approach to planning and how to engage correctly with the authorities for an appropriate result.
f.    DESIGNS THAT WORK – What regulations apply to which aspects of the work and how to correctly technically implement and harmonise them.
g.    INVALUABLE INDUSTRY KNOWLEDGE – The best products and services to deploy with the right response level for your situation and requirements.
h.    COST CONTROL – A response procedure to tackle issues of consent, design, construct and build to ensure best practice.

A. Unless you know the history of the product, including age, capacity and safe working loads, we advise you to avoid it. Definitely do not buy anything which has been standing outside or shows any sign of damage or corrosion. If you can buy it direct from an industrial application as a trusted source you will usually pay less than half the cost and in some cases it can be free for the cost of removing it. Obviously the latter is a much rarer occurrence.

Q. What weight will my used racking take?

A. If you look on the uprights there is frequently a mill mark pressed into the metal and in some cases into the beams as well. If you can describe or take a rubbing of the slot, most materials handling companies who have storage equipment in their range will be able to identify the brand. Once we know this we can usually work out safe working loads for the bays, frames and beams.

Q. How much money will I save buying used racking?

A.Buying it from a trade outlet you will save about 20%. However I have seen racking more than 20% more than the new price. Consultants can frequently get up to 50% below market prices through connections with the main rolling mills. If you only want to buy a small amount then 20% is about what you will save although there are some things about which you should be cautious.   Carriage of small quantities can be very costly, anything up to £500 for dedicated loads, irrespective of quantities. Handling is critically important.  Damaged uprights are scrap and extremely dangerous.  Any beams showing impact damage or which are visibly a banana shape should not be used.  It is an indicator of stress and the joints and material may be suffering fatigue.  We strongly advise you stay clear of them.  Always inspect used equipment prior to buying and remember the second hand market is unregulated and practically devoid of qualified people. You should only buy used equipment from trusted sources.

Q. How do I assemble my used racking?

A. First of all you will need the manufacturer’s manual, but generally the bracing is set at intervals of 600mm, so a complete horizontal V-strut tying the front upright to the back upright will be 1200mm across at the top of the ‘V’, with the point of the ‘V’ being spaced equally at 600mm between the two extremities.

Pallet racking is designed only to take vertical loads.  The minute the beams start to deflect they exert sideways pressure on the uprights which will cause them to bow out. A lot of this is addressed through the numbers claws on the beam connectors.  You must have more than two beam levels where the first beam level is below 1500mm and the spacing should be equal. You must also have more than two bays joined together. You need to understand that a beam level comprises a pair of beams and two uprights and a bay is the distance between the uprights and the number of beam levels it houses. Properly set up your bays should be able to take anywhere from five tons upwards if the upright face is greater than 75mm. However unless you are a qualified engineer always take professional advice and never buy products new or used from anybody who is unable to provide this basic level of service.   Incorrectly constructed pallet racking can and does kill people if it fails and it will be completely silent.

3 purposes for Used Racking

1. Used or redundant pallet racking (and some shelving) readily converts to excellent work tops for assembling packing work.  Minor corrosion and minor damage is practically irrelevant under these circumstances, bearing in mind the frames will be able to take several tons and the beams up to four tons on a 2.7m beam, which is 110mm to 120mm by 43mm plus profile. For light duty work they are practically indestructible and with a bottom shelf in place extremely sturdy.
2. Used Pallet racking will also make good shelving, which can be readily picked from both sides.   In good condition and using half bay beam sizes they are extremely good for storing metal parts and heavy weights.
3. For a symmetrical storage system manufactured from pallet racking with the addition of some drop over beams, it is possible to construct a very useful storage platform to utilise the head room. The same technique can be applied to create two tier storage. However always seek professional advice before embarking on this sort of project as it must be correctly constructed.

There is Value in Headroom

The next time you are in your warehouse or factory remember to look up! I can guarantee that the space around you is less than 40% full.  If it is not, then you are one of the very small minority of people who have achieved an 85% efficiency or one of the 35% of people operating in cramped conditions and under performing. Either way it is very likely that there are opportunities for improvements.

Essential Heights

For now lets assume there is nothing going on in your roof space other than its capacity to inflate your fuel bills.  If you think of train sets or railway lines, its a method of linking up to points which otherwise don’t exist in a desirable form or are too costly to interact with each other.  In order to access headroom you need 3 conditions:

•    Condition 1 – Anything over doorway height has the capability of earning you an income provided you can think of something to do with it.

•    Condition 2 – Anything over 4500mm high has the potential to become another work floor or storage platform provided you have the means of access and support.

•    Condition 3 – If you want full mezzanine space then 5m is the minimum otherwise you will hit your head on the roof.

Who Needs It?

If you take things to pieces or put them back together, sort them out, consign as in holding bulk and sending out small to multiple destinations and you want to cut costs, save time, space, handling damage or just mix ups or mistakes then you are one of the 10 best applications for conveyors.

What you can Save?

For my real example I am going to explain how the use of overhead conveyors saved two companies over £400 per hour straight on to their bottom line.

Both companies warehouse, manufacture, and ship and are multi sited. They both supply retail who are not noted for their generosity and they have to work very hard for their pennies.  Manufacturing headroom is usually governed by the height of the machines, which in textiles is low.  Storage is more complex but a 7m eave is a good starting point.
The U.K., which moved from shop keeping in Napoleonic times to become the production centre of the planet, is still littered with redundant production facilities.  Even engineering work shops are seldom over 4m and frequently too narrow because they housed cranes. Modern facilities draw a good but not perfect compromise.

Company A had two sites 60 miles apart.  One was a cut, make and trim textile operation and the other onward processed their work.  The second factory, sited in an old mill, in Yorkshire had inaccessible roof space filled with steel roof trusses.  Not obvious, but possible, these roof trusses could be opened out, supported through a mezzanine floor, strengthened and fitted out to hold the cut, make and trim operation.  It paid for itself in 6 weeks.  A simple gravity conveyor connected the two operations.

Company B had a manufacturing unit in a 9m high building and a storage unit in a 2.8m high building.  This arrangement was reversed to provide mezzanine storage and adjustable pallet racking storage.  It became a marshalling point and distribution operation for the business.  It took six months to complete and enabled production volumes to double with the same work force.    This was achieved by an inter-connecting conveyor ferrying goods at ground level from four manufacturing sections at the end of which they were metal detected and fed straight on to an overhead conveyor and out to a 7 vehicle bay dock where they were fed on to waiting loading conveyors, effectively turning a 6 man operation into a two man operation at every connecting point to the conveyor so the vehicles spent less time on the docks, more work could be warehoused or processed and less errors were made in processing.

1)    Only 10% of products, sizes and varieties ever find their way into catalogues.

2)    90% of all items that don’t make it on to the internet don’t because they are too difficult to catalogue…but are still very easy to order.

3)    Catalogues don’t know your predicament.  90% of all purchasers have no idea of the real specification of what they are buying, where it is made and how well it will perform.

4)    Handling equipment specified by engineers outlasts catalogue items by up to 5 times

5)    You can’t put pictures of “know how” in a catalogue. Engineers know which catalogue items perform best, anything else is trial and error and a waste of someone’s time, money and resource. Engineers do designs because the delete button is cheaper than sending it back

6)    Increasingly catalogues offer project support.   This comes from salesmen and rarely engineers in the first instance.

7)    You are unlikely to speak to an engineer if you ring up a catalogue company.

8)    Few, if any catalogues, will mix and match perfectly compatible products for fear of failure and lack of understanding

9)    Catalogues do offer convenience, choice and are helpful in clarifying situations and providing solutions. They round up stock batches and share distribution costs, often hold stocks and monitor supplier performance (some better than others).

10)    You should be guided by catalogues not ruled by them, there are very effective alternatives. In the right hands catalogues make a worthy contribution, that’s why we have a catalogue but first and foremost we are engineers.

The common law of business balance prohibits payng a little and getting a lot.  It cannot be done  If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is as well to add somthing for the risk you run.  And if you do that, you will have enough to pay for something better”

John Ruskin (1819-1900)

Tom’s new recruit came back in under an hour reporting that they were all working perfectly. There are around 50 items to check. Raising an eyebrow Tom looked directly at the young lad and said ‘really’ then paused for a second then added ‘you are going on sea trials aren’t you?’ At that moment Tom said the full enormity of his ‘quick check’ registered with him. Tom recalled I saw a flicker of hesitation in his eyes, then he announced I think I will just go and check them again. Six and a half hours later he re-appeared satisfied but Tom did detect more than a casual air of tension when the first dive procedure was engaged during sea trials. The ship in the picture leaving harbour must cause the engineers the same concern and even more so the people who built the original version who had a fraction of the tools and knowledge we do today. I still think to see a tall ship engaging with the elements is engineering art in motion.

Last week on the first May Bank Holiday weekend 2010 I visited Saltaire Mill. I think you will agree with me that the watercolour interpretation does it justice and it is undeniably art in this context with its allotments neatly laid out and lovingly tendered by the 2010 Resident Owners. It was sold off, I believe, in the sixties to raise money for the main mill operation which had around 20 years life left at that time, The designers, if my memory serves me correctly, created the mill architecture in very much an Italian style which in itself is a very pleasing art form and easy on the eye. However it is not quite so easy to calculate the loadings, especially when there are 6 levels with heavy duty floors to support the very heavy mill machinery, therefore in this context and at this point, art and science engage under the umbrella of engineering.

On initial inspection the whole site looks perfect in terms of engineering and architecture but closer examination soon shows up weaknesses caused by ground slip, vibration and years of use. However even after all this time or perhaps because of all this time, it produces a pleasing watercolour to grace the wall of any boardroom or reception. In fact engineering art has a place in most public places, airports, particularly town halls and civic centres, art galleries, education centres and industry should all display their history with pride. There is always an artistic interpretation of even the grimmest of engineering examples.

On this basis at Engineered Solutions we are happy to commission engineering art and will survey for it and quote accordingly so when you are building your new factory extension or going through a structural re-organisation you can record the events in an imaginative and artistic way as a proud talking point for your customers, suppliers and colleagues alike. I was at Heathrow Airport ten days ago and on the wall of a major building services provider were black and white framed photographs depicting an entire airline history. You might not think this was amazing but when I tell you every single one was picked out of the scrap skip along with models and other memorabilia, you may be excused a sharp intake of breath. Quite apart from their worth, they had an obvious historic value. Although his offices were no more than Second World War Nissen huts, the corridors were transformed into art galleries and it had a profound affect on me and I am sure anybody else who will ever be lucky enough to witness such interesting material in a Nissen hut which has survived from the original aerodrome and is a major maintenance section to all the new terminal blocks. When there is a problem with the T.V. in the waiting lounge, the maintenance call goes straight to this amazing little office and a hive of activity kicks into action.

This next piece on the right is by the same artist. She is a very talented person and specialises in street art and buildings and some of her interpretations, I think you will agree, are very special. The one on the right is in fact New York but I know the road through Leith in Edinburgh, across the canal dock, looks very similar on a wet day. These are lovely boardroom pieces and are available for you to personally commission through your architect or direct from us to complement your work place, or any working place for that matter.

Talking of work places, you would not think Battersea Power Station could ever be a work of art. However in the setting to the left it is nothing less and English Heritage may wish to reconsider their verdict. It is the largest brick building in Europe. I would think only the Theipval Memorial on the Somme containing over 70,000 names of the fallen from the 1916 Offensive comes close to rivalling it. The Offensive also claimed the life of one of my great uncles about whom I amazingly found a detailed account of his last day on the planet in a successful assault on the Schwaben Redoubt. Although he was killed in this attempt, his company managed to make it back to their trenches. It was not then successfully retaken until 14th October that year by the Cambridgeshires. Although his grave is unmarked, I believe I found it on the north wall of the Mill Road Cemetery right where he should have been and probably within a few feet from where he was killed.

On the left the Thames Skyline at Canary Wharf by the same artist. Another amazing example of engineering and art combined to produce an amazing working environment. Perhaps you have your own working model in mind that we can reproduce for your reception or if you are a local authority, we could produce pieces to adorn your entrance or galleries lest we forget the huge effort our engineers, artists and scientists have, and are constantly working together to produce. So, if you think your warehouse looks boring, your factory uninteresting, the industrial estate is an eye sore, think again. Give it to me and I will paint a different picture of it for you.

I can remember in the 70′s these mills working and men handling quarter ton botany bales, taking its name from the wool in the bale, which in the early days of Saltaire linked to a wool sorting operation, must have been a living hell of disease, not least of all from anthrax spores housed in the wool. Quite apart from the workers living practically in their own excrement, disease and danger was the inspiration for improved factory conditions and the reason for total business communities like Saltaire coming into existence.

The canals and railways are particularly important to my family as we have our engineering routes inextricably buried deep into the industrial revolution. The harnessing of steam power and the means of fuelling it revolutionised from the Worsley Bridgewater Canal Mines transformed our abilities to manufacture the base materials we needed to feed and clothe ourselves. A simple supper with a bottle of wine and all the cutlery and plates and cooking facilities from scratch would require trillions of pounds to put on any table today from a standing start, even the clothes you wear represent breathtaking sums of investment. At the time of the Industrial Revolution not only could you not have afforded to buy them, you would have had to wait over a hundred years to take delivery of them. The revolution in clothing alone is partly responsible for our ability to conquer the Arctic and the mountain tops of the Himalayas. In other words the success of generations of time and money invested into the infrastructure we have today is still very delicately balanced and reliant on quality and trust like never before. One hung Parliament and a volcano is all you need to upset the delicate balance!

One of the wheels on these locomotives could be measured in tonnes. You can feel the ground move under its weight. Fully laden I would estimate this steam locomotive would have weighed in at a hefty 60 to 70 tonnes which means bridge building is a serious pastime. Add to this dynamic loadings and you have got yourself an engineer’s mathematical paradise.

The sack barrow you can see in the background is made with great love and precision, wrought iron and the blacksmith’s hammer have fashioned its distinctive shape. The powerful solid inch diameter axle on to which is mounted its cast iron wheels, all fitted to a beech or oak framework, denotes these sack barrows as the workhorses of their time. The angle at which they sit is precisely balanced to enable it to effortlessly rotate its load (in excess of 500 kgs sometimes) in perfect balance on to the very precise fit of the bearings on to the axle. It is with some horror that I see ¬£12.00 sack barrows from China with a life expectancy of 9 months mounted to half inch axles of inferior steel to which wheels are offered because the word ‘fitted’ is totally inappropriate, they don’t. The clearances between these and the precision with which I was trained is the difference between the entrance to Dartford Tunnel through which a bus could easily pass. Equipment I manufactured in the 70′s is still in use today, including wooden sack barrows and traditional carts which we still supply on precision axles and fit for many industrial applications. This makes our Chinese ‘cheapies’ nearly three times more expensive because you would have to buy 28 of them for the same life span and even then they do not take half the weight the suppliers think they can, that is because the entire weight should be taken on one wheel with a 50% safety factory. This rule has simply been forgotten but it is lovely to look at the build quality of these old handling systems and the metal in the train wheels which work faultlessly thousands and thousands of times.

So as we left Haworth Station I reflected on a bygone era whose foundations are still providing the corner stones of our modern economy. The same railway lines prepared and started over a hundred years ago are still functioning with the same bridges, the principles of the bogies and steering arrangements on tracks are still very much in use today as are the foundries and methods that created many of them, although the foundry businesses that created them have long since gone. However wheels on tracks and the metals used are still very much in evidence in our crane systems and material handling equipment so my little trip out to the industrial past of Yorkshire meant a lot to me taking in the canals, railways and mills which are still there to be enjoyed thankfully. All we have to do is keep them in good order of which the Rochdale Canal is a fine example of restoration with one of the deepest locks, if not the deepest lock, in the country – a far cry from the days when it used to catch fire due to the high levels of pollution.

As I said farewell to Oxenhope at the end of the line, I reflected on the Railway Children’s final scene containing the famous line ‘Daddy, My Daddy’ uttered by Bobbie played by Jenny Agutter to Michael Kitchen who plays Daddy. However it is the face of Richard Attenborough who played the old, influential gentleman that really sticks in my mind and when I think of places like Saltaire and the real improvements that we have seen over the years and throughout our nation since those dark years of the industrial revolution. It is this sort of person and character who has influenced the real changes in our lives.