Singapore-based Pan Asia Logistics is the preferred freight forwarder and logistics partner for many of the top brands in Asia.
Founded in late 2002, the company has seen rapid growth and expanded through Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, South Korea, Hong Kong, China, India, Taiwan, Vietnam, Japan, Italy and Germany. The team has also picked up several accolades including Entrepreneur of the year, Enterprise of the year and a Singapore Productivity award. The last three years have seen significant investment in new warehouse space including marquee parts distribution centres for Mercedes-Benz in Korea and BMW in Malaysia – both of which we are proud to say incorporate a high performance CoGri floor.
After the success of these projects which have a combined floor area of over 100,000 m2, the team at Pan Asia Logistics turned to CoGri with a different sort of challenge – upgrading one of their key properties in Singapore to meet the needs of a new tenant who operates a Very Narrow Aisle (VNA) racking system. VNA racking offers key advantages compared to traditional wide aisle pallet systems – maximum storage capacity, fast accessibility and quick picking while providing the best utilization of ground floor area. However, in order to access these benefits, the concrete floor must be an order of magnitude flatter than in a traditional warehouse. The tight spacing in VNA aisles, use of semi-automated fork trucks and high lifting heights leave very little room for error – a high quality floor is essential and very few contractors in the world have the expertise to deliver the quality required to make VNA facilities a success.
Fortunately, CoGri Group are recognized leaders when it comes to constructing “super flat” floors required for VNA facilities. In the last few years alone CoGri Asia have been responsible for installing and upgrading floors for over 60 km of VNA racking aisles across the region. This project, at a 45,000 m2 multi-level warehouse in Tuas in Singapore posed a unique challenge.
Typically, CoGri Group use their patented Laser GrinderTM to quickly convert a traditional floor to the rigorous flatness standards required for a VNA facility. In this case, the floor is post-tensioned and there were limits on the depth of grinding that was permissible before the structure would be compromised. Using a FACE Profileograph, CoGri Asia carried out a detailed survey of the floor and determined that grinding would not be an option.
In some places, over 20 to 30 mm of grinding works would have been required and this would reduce the stiffness and integrity of the floor.
To mitigate this issue, CoGri designed and constructed a 100 mm bonded topping slab. To meet the tight program requirements and avoid unnecessary cost, the floor was constructed in a wide bay layout as opposed to traditional long strip technique. Worldwide the standard method for casting a VNA floor is to construct 1 – 2 aisles at a time so that the finishing team can focus on the exacting flatness standards. This method is effective but slow and costly. CoGri have developed a methodology to achieve VNA tolerances using larger casting sizes with Somero Laser Screed technology – in this case casting 5 aisles at a time. This allowed an entire floor in the building to be converted for VNA in under a week, and reduced the cost by nearly 30%.
This methodology also offered Pan Asia Logistics the benefit of a brand new CoGri floor – not only exacting flatness but a hard wearing and durable surface that will require little to no effort to maintain in a pristine condition.
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