SHEET TOWER

Choosing between shelving and racking systems depends on what you’ll be storing and how you’ll access it. Here’s a breakdown to help you decide:

Racking

• Ideal for : Warehouses, storerooms, and industrial settings. Designed for heavy loads, often stored on pallets and accessed with forklifts or other mechanized equipment.
• Features : Strong, deep steel structures, and often much taller than shelving. They help maximize storage capacity.
• Advantages : Can hold significantly more weight than shelving. They maximize vertical storage space, and are efficient for bulk storage and retrieval with machinery.

Shelving

• Ideal for : Lightweight items that can be easily reached and picked by hand. Common uses include stores, offices, and home garages.
• Features : Typically consists of individual upright frames with shelves made of metal, wood, or plastic. They come in various heights and shelf configurations.
• Advantages : Relatively inexpensive, easy to install and adjust, offers good visibility and easy access to individual items.

Industrial-strength shelving units, called heavy-duty racks, are built to take on your toughest storage challenges. Crafted from steel, these shelves can handle massive loads, typically way over 1500 kg per shelf. That makes them perfect for bulky items like pallets, boxes filled with equipment, or even machinery parts.

Roll out vertical rack has a capacity of 5000 lbs per cartridge.

The most serious risk is a complete system collapse. The overloaded racks buckle under the weight, potentially sending everything stored on them crashing down. This can cause injuries or even death to workers nearby.

Even if a total collapse doesn’t happen, overloaded racks can become unstable. This can lead to items toppling over or pallets getting dislodged, damaging the products themselves.

Here are some key steps you can take to prevent racking collapses in your warehouse or storage facility :

1. Weight Limits : Don’t exceed the weight capacity specified for each level of your racking system. It’s important to consider not only the weight of individual items. Indeed, you should also consider weight distribution across the racking system and the beam.
2. Regular Inspections : Conduct regular inspections of your racking system by a qualified professional. This should include checking for any damage, wear, or corrosion that could compromise the integrity of the racks.
3. Damaged Components : Don’t ignore any signs of damage. Address any bent, cracked, or loose components immediately. It’s important to repair or replace damaged racks to ensure safety.
4. Proper Use : Train your staff on the proper use of the racking system, including how to load and unload pallets safely. This will help to prevent accidental overloading or damage.

A qualified professional should inspect your industrial racking system once a year at least. This thorough inspection will assess the racking system, identify potential risks, and provide recommendations for maintenance or repairs.

For optimal warehouse racking safety, pair annual professional inspections with routine visual checks performed by a trained employee. You can adjust the frequency of these visual checks depending on your needs. They can range from weekly to bi-weekly or even every other month.

Regularly documenting both thorough inspections and quick visual checks of your racks is key. This creates a history that shows the condition of your system over time. It also demonstrates your commitment to safety by following recommended procedures.  For your ease, a Roll Out Racks inspection checklist is available for download here.

Yes, all racking systems, regardless of risk level, should undergo regular inspections. While the frequency of inspections may vary depending on different factors, regular inspections are crucial for all racking systems.