Industry: Power Transmission
Product: Drum Racks
The Story of the Drum Storage Creation
The Problem
Northern Powergrid is an Electricity Distribution Network Operator covering from the Scottish and Cumbrian borders in the North down to Lincolnshire in the South. When measuring out heavy electrical cable for repair jobs, the unwieldy cable drums were difficult to handle and could measure up to 2.2m diameter and weigh 2 tons. This meant that NPG required 3 people to safely unroll, measure and cut a length of heavy cable. 1 person on a forklift, 1 person loading the drum and ensuring the drum was stable during unrolling and cutting which the third person carried out.
The challenge was to design a solution that reduced the number of people required while maintaining health and safety guidelines.
Why Northern Powergrid Chose Black Hills Products
After building a good reputation designing and manufacturing smaller items as well as a pole storage system Black Hills Products seemed a logical choice to engineer a solution to this particular problem.
How Black Hills Products Responded
After an initial consultation with the Logistics Manager, we CAD designed a solution allowing for a minimum footprint while maximising drum size handling. We also designed a lifting frame to allow easy loading of the drums into the frame.
The Results
Northern Powergrid now has our Drum Racks installed at 3 sites in the North East.
This now allows 1 person to unroll, measure and cut the cable required in a safe manner without the use of forklift trucks other than initially loading the rack, this has increased the efficiency of this location and freed up vital staff for other areas.
