Located in Stockton-on-Tees, the 7,600 sq ft state-of-the-art northern regional centre will provide round-the-clock material handling support services to a growing Morris customer base in this part of the country.

Pat Campbell, operations director maintenance services said: “The decision to invest in the new service centre demonstrates our commitment to providing customers with ever improving levels of maintenance and service support.”

He added: “Historically, the north of England has been of strategic importance to the maintenance services division of Morris Material Handling and we see no reason why this should change – quite the contrary.”

“For example,” he continued, “we have not only attracted many new customers, we have been equally successful in expanding the levels and types of service provision that we are currently providing to our existing clientele.”    

The new centre incorporates some 4,600 sq ft dedicated to the latest materials handling equipment, including a new Morris overhead crane equipped with the latest radio control, load weighing, speed control and power feed technology.

By incorporating the latest crane device technologies on site at Stockton, Morris Maintenance Services aims to demonstrate the benefits that a customer can gain from the deployment of additional lifting handling equipment devices.

The two-storey Stockton site also accommodates some 3,000 sq ft of office space located at first floor level. Furthermore, the service centre also has access to well-equipped conference facilities that will be deployed by Morris for customer training purposes.

In addition to incorporating the latest materials handling workshop facilities and technologies, operation of the service centre is coordinated by, what Morris called “a dedicated team of highly skilled individuals.”

Assuming overall responsibility is northern regional operations manager Peter Burton. In addition to managing the activities of the centre’s permanent on-site staff, he also works in close cooperation with service centre manager Peter Goodman, who is responsible for overseeing the activities of a 10-strong team of mobile fleet engineers.

The Stockton service centre will house an extensive 400 line van stock spare parts store, which the fleet engineers will be able to draw from when undertaking all kinds and types of servicing, maintenance and repair work.