Grido ice creams renovates its logistics centre in Córdoba (Argentina)

Mundo Helado: 3PL for Grido

At the beginning of 2010, Grido, one of the largest ice cream chains in Latin America, set in motion its plan to invest in decentralising all the company’s logistics and sales processes. Thus, Mundo Helado was born, a logistics operator tasked with supplying all the Grido ice cream shops throughout Argentina. As a result of an explosion in sales at Grido, Mundo Helado is immersed in a permanent expansion process (building new warehouses), as well as renovating and updating those already in service.

These days, Mundo Helado provides third-party logistics services (3PL) in different towns in Argentina like Recreo, Rosario, Mendoza, Mercedes or Tucumán, among others.

“Since we have worked with Mecalux on previous occasions,” –explains Francisco Achaval, General Manager of Mundo Helado– “we know the company well, and it has always provided us with the best quality storage solutions. On this basis, we knew clearly who we would choose when it came to renovating our main operations centre located in Córdoba.”

Warehouse space purposing

Mecalux has installed two 5.5 m high blocks of push-back pallet racking, which each have three-tiered storage. In the words of the company’s general manager, “This solution fully optimises the warehouse’s surface, letting us slot our products without needing to have many aisles.”

The two blocks attract attention due to their massive size: 71 m long and 4.3 m wide. Overall, they have 294 channels with space to store four pallets in depth. Each one of the channels is set aside for a single SKU.

The racking comprises sets of lanes arranged on a slight incline (the front is somewhat lower, meaning gravity moves the pallets forward to the aisle’s front position when one is extracted). This system offers up dynamic handling of the goods: the operators insert and extract the goods from the position that faces the aisle, considerably reducing the handling time.

Elevated productivity

Push-back racks bring speed to goods management, which is fundamental, day-to-day, since it receives around 100 pallets and sends out another 125. This means that during each work day the operators must insert and extract pallets from their locations on the double.

Moreover, picking is an essential task at Mundo Helado: each day it puts together an average of 400 orders comprised of 60 order lines. Operators move around the warehouse collecting the products that comprise each order directly off pallets located on the lower racking levels.

Francisco Achaval - General Manager of Mundo Helado
“We are beyond pleased with the push-back racks because they make use of all available in-warehouse space. Plus, it is the type of system that lets us manage products quickly, something that helps us provide efficient service and supply the Grido chain’s points-of-sale.”

Advantages for Mundo Helado

• Reduced handling times: the push-back racking offers streamlined handling of goods and benefits the flows of 100 incoming and another 125 outgoing pallets.
• Bolstered storage capacity: the racking leverages available warehouse space to hold 2,400 pallets that are 1,000 x 1,200 mm in size.
• Picking as a priority: picking takes place on lower racking levels and, each day, close to 400 different orders are prepped.