Belgian company Stow’s Middle East headquarters in the Jebel Ali Free Zone has been successful in bringing to the region internationally acclaimed equipment for storage solutions.
The solutions are provided in mass-produced standard items or in custom-made products. Stow representatives have at their disposal an enormous reserve of technical know-how. Technical backup may come from engineers at their own branch or from the parent company and the know-how is regularly updated at training seminars.
“Nowadays the main activities of Stow International (Middle East) are still the design, production and assembly of steel elements,” says a company spokesman. The final products are usually made of standard components but non-standard requirements of customers are also accommodated.
The solutions include pallet racking, wide-span shelving systems (fixed or mobile, galvanised or coated), display racking for carpets, drive-in and drive-through, dynamic storage, cantilever racking, raised storage areas, vertical storage and retrieval systems.
As manufacturer of racking systems, the Stow product range is mainly composed of the following: pallet racking (type: Pal Rack); long span shelving for all types of goods (Midi Rack); shelf racks for spare parts storage (Stowshelf); drive-in racks for palletised storage (Drive-in); mezzanines (Mezza-Stow); racks for storage of long lengths (Kanti-Stow); mobile racking (Mobil Stow) and automatic storage (Vertical Storage).
In the Middle East, Stow has done installations for some 40 establishments including Saudi Iron and Steel Company (Hadeed), Procter & Gamble, Petrokemya, Etisalat, RHS Logistics, Al Ghanim Industries, Almarai, United Motors, Ibn Hayyan, Ibn Zahr, Ibn Baytar, Red Sea Housing, Saudi Methanol and Consolidated Shipping Services.
Worldwide Stow has installed its equipment in some of the most prestigious companies. A general list provided by the companies includes Agfa Gavaert, Akzo Coating, Asea Brown Boveri, Coca-Cola, Degussa, Dow Chemicals Benelux, Exxon Chemicals, General Motors Cont, Maersk-Ceska, Honda Europe, KLM, Levi Strauss, Mercedes Benz, Peugeot Talbot, Pfizer, Philip Industries, Renault, Tetrapak, Texaco, Toyota Tsusko Europe and Volvo Europe.
In recent Stow worldwide developments, Stow (UK) completed a project for home furnishing products company Ikea. For the Ikea-Peterborough project, Stow (UK) was given just 20 weeks to fit out the high bay, (but still managed to hand over three weeks ahead of schedule) and 12 weeks for the low-bay areas.
Ikea receives palletised and un-palletised goods from suppliers. Goods are stored either on standard Euro pallets, half-Euro pallets or a larger pallet unique to Ikea. This 800 x 2,000 mm pallet can have high twin sidebars added to allow stacking and thus achieve the maximum available storage capacity within the trailer.
With 72,035 pallet positions out of a total of 132,529, the high bay contains the majority of goods at Peterborough. It is also the only area of the distribution centre, which is partly automated. Stow (UK) installed its Pal Rack conventional racking system, with characteristic blue uprights and orange horizontal beams, 12 positions high in the 24-m-high facility. The high bay was specifically designed for Euro pallets. Incoming 40-foot trailers from Ikea suppliers are unloaded at Goods In.
Stow Middle East has also been awarded two contracts for Ikea in Jeddah for fast-track delivery and installation. Orders are placed and installation is done simultaneously through its local agent, Al Iman.
