New Heathrow cargo facility opened

Part of the Ascentis cage store, showing the height to which cargo is stacked. Leonard Neill ASCENTIS, HEATHROW'S state-of-the-art freight handling facility, is now fully operational, with British Airways World Cargo satisfied it has now put into service the most advanced freight processing facility of its kind in the world. The airline held back numerous planned openings until it was satisfied it had met all requirements, with visibility and automation of all movements monitored and controlled from a central point in what is, in reality, a giant warehouse. But the word Ôwarehouse' hardly describes the modernistic approach to handling in the area which includes a cage store housing 9 000 cages in five levels where cargo is moved by 80 automatic hoists and 76 cargo transfer vehicles. There is no human handling involved with everything strictly automated. This is done through a system named ALERTS (Aircraft Logistics Electronic Resource Tracking System) which at the touch of a button identifies the origin and destination of a consignment. This then requests the first available vehicle to transport the freight in or out of Ascentis. It is achieved by multiple airside infeeds preventing congestion and delay, and with fast transfer from truck dock to the unit loading device store. Every consignment is electronically linked to a job number and each job is allocated to a break and build workstation. As an example, for loose freight departing - and this is one area in which BAWC sees future development of air freighting - the materials handling control system delivers the correct type of unit for building to the workstation. Laser-guided transfer vehicles move along tracks within the facility, where each consignment is located in a single cage and scanned, and transfered to wherever required. In this way cages containing loose freight are delivered to the appropriate workstation with no more forklift trips to rack locations. Thirty six manipulators suspended from the ceiling have replaced forklifts in this area. They can rotate 360 degrees, giving the operator full control when lifting weights of up to 1 000kg. Hydraulic floors in the break and build area maintain a user-friendly height for the build operator to facilitate constant reach when loading and unloading consignments. Moving incoming truck loads or dispatching cargo to awaiting vehicles with both collection and deliveries can be processed at the same service door. These are serviced by two moving truck docks which move between all eight doors. The dock operator can communicate with all other points of the facility from inside the cab, as well as having full access to the truck manifest on screen to provide speedy answers to any queries that may arise.