It takes at least 12 years to mature the best selling Glenfiddich single malt whisky before it is ready to be bottled and shipped all over the world. It will therefore come as no surprise that at William Grant & Sons Distillers Customer Service Centre and bottling hall near Glasgow, they ensure that cases of Glenfiddich and their other top quality Scotch whisky brands are handled with care using Yale Veracitor VX Series forklift trucks.

The 30 strong fleet of Yale Veracitor VX IC-engined forklift trucks at the Bellshill site handle over 15000 pallets a month, ensuring delivery of over 11 million cases of William Grant’s best selling brands, including the Balvenie, Hendrick’s Gin, Reyka Vodka, Grant’s Whisky and Glenfiddich to over 180 countries worldwide.
Founded in 1886, William Grant & Sons is still family owned and one of Scotland’s leading independent distillers. With distilleries at Dufftown and Girvan, the company still produces its leading brands of Scotch whisky by traditional methods. Its continued success is due to the consistent quality of its products.

Considerable Yale Experience
Matured whiskies and other premium spirits are delivered to the Bellshill bottling plant and stored in the Vat Hall, from where they are bottled at a rate of 500 bottles per minute. The automated process starts in the Vat Hall, with bottles, caps and labels delivered from the dry goods warehouse to the bottling hall, where the bottles are rinsed, filled, capped and labelled, before emerging in the wet goods warehouse, where the cases are packed as cases of 6 bottles, palletised, stretch-wrapped and prepared for despatch.

With responsibility for the 33 teams operating in the wet goods warehouse, Gerry McEntee explained: “We have used Yale forklift trucks for 12 years, so have considerable experience of using the products and have always enjoyed a good working relationship with the Yale team in Scotland”. “Yale forklift trucks have proved to be very reliable and the latest Veracitor VX models are also very productive, which is important as we have no room for error when unloading high value pallet loads from the production lines at a rate of more than one pallet every minute” said Mr McEntee.

High Productivity
In the wet goods warehouse, the rapid acceleration, deceleration and constant direction changes required to off-load and stack the completed pallets ready for shipment, makes high demands on the transmission on the Yale GLP20VX forklift trucks. The Techtronix transmission developed for the new Veracitor VX Series of lift trucks has transformed the way these engine powered counterbalance trucks are able to operate in intensive loading applications found at William Grant and Sons.
Auto Deceleration System (ADS) braking available with the Techtronix transmission, automatically slows the truck when the driver releases the throttle, for example, when the truck approaches the off-load conveyor to collect the loaded pallet. When combined with Auto Speed Hydraulics, Automatic Inching Control and Throttle Response Management, the result is intelligent forklift truck control, designed to maximise productivity by maintaining operating speed and response in a high productivity environment.

At the heart of the Veracitor VX Series is the Intellix Vehicle Management System (VSM)which acts as a master truck controller. CANbus technology helps to minimise wiring whilst providing instant communications to manage all the truck control systems. The Veracitor VX Series is described as having “intelligence ‘designed-in’ for better control and improved productivity”.