Whether you’re planning a new warehouse or seeking to streamline an existing one, it’s important to know what kind of storage is available, so that you can choose the right combination for your needs.
Pallet racking
Whether the pallets are made of plastic, wood or metal, pallet racking is the most common form of storage for warehouses.
There are at least a dozen different kinds of pallet racking, because requirements for space, stability, weight bearing capacity and movement vary for different applications. However, whichever kind of pallet racking is used, it’s absolutely essential to keep to the weight limits for that type of pallet.
When you’re planning pallet racking, you need to look at how you use your forklifts. Some warehouses have a specialised kind of pallet racking that allows double stacking of pallets, but this requires customised forklifts to access the pallets. Logistics Business magazine has a good overview of the special kinds of forklifts that can be used in the warehouse environment.
Static shelves
Rather than being stored on pallets which can be moved about, some stock simply sits on shelves. This type of storage is used where the stock has a high turnover and needs to be quickly accessed. It’s ideal for applications where the items are fairly light or quite small and are manually picked and stored.
Mobile shelving
We tend to think of goods and products when we think of warehouses, but actually increasing amounts of data are being stored. The move to Cloud storage has led to a lot of paper documents being archived and these are often stored in warehouses specially designed for the purpose. The shelves have a track-based system that allows items to be moved forward for retrieval.
Multiple tiers and mezzanines
This type of racking is ideal when you have a warehouse with a limited footprint, but plenty of room going up to the roof. RackZone, specialists in industrial shelving in Ireland (https://www.rackzone.ie/shelving/industrial-residential-shelving) can advise on racking that is designed in tiers, almost like a building, with extra floors being added to provide more storage.
The mezzanine floors have to be accessed by stairs and the storage is very compact, so this is an ideal solution where you have a lot of stock with small individual units.
