Memorable Conveyor Commissions (Part 1)
As the Beatles song goes ‘there are places I remember’…. which is true for us at Wolverhampton handling too.
The majority of our work is fairly standard conveyor commissions and roller replacements, but every now and then a job takes us by surprise, either due to the reason they want a conveyor, or the location it’s to be sited in.
A few months back, we talked about installing one in a customer’s garage so that he could create space for a second car, and that sparked the idea for this blog – aimed at showing just how versatile conveyors are in so many different places. That got the grey matter working, and we realised just how busy we’ve been across the years.
Indeed – to date, we’ve installed hundreds all over the country, but a few of the places we remember mostly are the following, for a variety of reasons.
A plant nursery
As suppliers to M&S, this was a large operation that required thousands and thousands of plants and seedlings to be shifted in low temperatures. Rather than walk up and down manually shifting them, the products were boxed, and then conveyed into a cold-storage for transportation. This one stood out because we had to construct something that worked at -10 degrees (normally a temperature that would have parts seizing up, rather than rolling smoothly).
A Nuclear Power Station
Danger was the word here. The commission involved a visit to a nuclear station, which required some replacement rollers in the area that shifted irradiated material from the high-risk zone, through to the decontamination zone. Needless to say, we were placed in a separate room, and through an intercom, we advised the person in the reactive room on how to correctly measure the rollers!
A Mortuary
It’s an inevitable fact of life, but sooner or later we (generally) end up in a mortuary. Of course, for those used to the work, it’s nothing new but we had a bit of a shock when one of the bodies suddenly sat up! Apparently, this is quite normal – it’s to do with the release of bodily gases that force up the cadaver into a sitting position.
Our technician had seen it a thousand times before, and calmly pressed the body on the forehead, gently pushing it back to a prone position. We nearly jumped out of our skin! Good job the commission was an easy one – it was simply to measure up for rollers in the wharf storage unit (that’s the stacked unit where the bodies are stored)! So we remember this one, not for the skill involved, but the shock factor!
So that’s part 1 of our memorable commissions blog. In the interim, let’s not forget it’s Christmas soon – so we’d like to take this opportunity to wish all of our customers a very peaceful and happy time.
Holiday Opening Hours
We’ll be closing on 24th December, and re-opening on 2nd January 2017. We look forward to your new and wacky requests in the new year!
