Warehouse Systems Limited have been operating from their Leeds offices since 1989, growing in experience in the pallet racking and mezzanine flooring industry to become one of the UKs leading experts in warehouse systems.
In 2008, WSL opened their own state-of-the-art factory, releasing them from reliance on suppliers. This improved lead times as well as providing opportunities for the production ofhighly customised racking and mezzanines. At an impressive 15,000 sq ft, the factory has space for any size project and boasts a wide variety of high spec machinery.
When the 2014 laws came into force, the WSL Factory was ahead of the curve and ensured they were accredited to BS EN 1090 and all structural steel work which leaves the factory is CE Marked; this ensures each project goes through the most rigorous of checking right from the design phase through to the installation on site.
Production Director Sophie Langdale, who oversees the department says "Being a CE Accredited Structural Steel Manufacturer ensures everything that leaves our factory is completed to the highest standard and customers can be confident they are getting a quality product. A number of our competitors are still not CE compliant, but we have always felt it was important to invest in ourselves and strive to be the best."
WSL has a compact highly skilled draughting team which can take any drawing and turn it into a bespoke design ready for production, using their state of the art CAD software they are able to produce CNC data for the automate drill line and production drawings from which the components are manufactured.
Shortly after the factory opening, Steven Greenwood started as Factory Foreman; here Steven shares his experiences in the WSL factory.
"Most jobs go through the same number of stages. Steel comes in cut and shot blasted. We use a mechanical power press to punch all the parts such as plates for the mezzanine floors and columns. Parts are welded together and once cooled we clean the welds and ensure a smooth finish. After quality checking, items are painted. Finally, items are loaded onto trucks, ready to be transported.
Whenever there is time in between deadlines, we work on building up a stock of standard items required for mezzanine floors, such as hand railing and pallet gates, in order to make the next project more efficient.
Over the years we’ve worked on a huge number of different projects, and we tend not to be fazed by anything. In the past we’ve had to work on 15m long mezzanine beams that have taken up the entire length of the welding area and we had to weld on huge numbers of fabricated plates. It was a certainly a challenge, but we got it done and out of the door on time!"
The message from top to bottom in the WSL Factory is that no job is too big or too small, each job is treated with the same level of attention to detail, with all the team dedicated to getting through the large volume of work which comes their way each year. In fact in the 10 year the factory has been operating it has produced enough hand rail to go from Leeds to Harrogate!