Interamerican Foods recently opened a new 150,000 square foot plant and distribution facility in Cleburne, Texas – the first in the United States for Mexico’s largest pasta manufacturer.

The Challenge

Interamerican wanted to store and ship their GMA pallets on the 48” face which meant picking up the pallet through the cutouts in the stringer versus the much higher openings on the 40” face. They also wanted to layout their warehouse utilizing pushback racks. This presented a problem because no standard pushback system has the clearances needed to get the forks into position without prematurely moving the carts – thus making it almost impossible to unload.

The Solution

Crown lift trucks of Dallas, Texas reached out to 3D Storage Systems to see if we could develop a new 5 deep pushback design specifically for this application. Using our Solidworks modeling software, 3D’s designers created fabrication drawings for a prototype. This prototype created carts with lower front ties that allowed over 4” of clearance for the forks. After building and testing a single lane at 3D’s facilities, the lane was sent down to the Crown Dealership for testing with the customer’s pallets to ensure that the design worked as specified. A few minor tweaks were added, and 3D was given the go-ahead to produce over 600 lanes for the new warehouse.