If you are planning to install pallet racking into your warehouse operations, you will be required to provide the supplier with basic information to avoid any nasty surprises upon installation to ensure pallet racking safety guidelines are met.
Typically a pallet racking company will work with you through the entire process to have a system designed around the specific needs, measurements and practicality when it comes to your storage. The proper determination of the maximum amount of pallet racking able to fit into space will be measured against both safety and efficiency to ensure you have the best in place.
When you are preparing to receive that quote, there are special considerations you can look at to aid the process yourself.
If you provide your supplier with upfront information about the weight that is expected to be placed on each level, your supplier can get a better understanding upfront of the ideal dimensions, steel thickness and quality to hold the required weight on each level.
In having this information, the supplier will be able to calculate ahead such items as how many beams per bay would be required. Also, it is always a good forward plan to be able to provide your supplier with the internal dimensions of your facility, including how much will be used for office space and how much space is allocated for pallet racking.
An obvious point that comes into play is the height of your facility, where the calculation is necessary when getting a quotation. The height of a loaded pallet is calculated as part of the design, so whatever stock you plan on holding has to play an important role in the measurements.
The system also has to be considered against any existing forklift equipment that you use as well as any intended investment into new machinery to be sure that the system can accommodate both in terms of width, height and practical use.
You will also be at a benefit upfront in providing information about the kind of floor that your industrial storage racks will be placed upon, as this will determine how they will be kept stable.
To gain maximum strength, pallet racks may need to be either welded to the floor or bolted down. Although you don’t think about it upfront, how your floor is laid plays a bigger part in keeping your racking strong and sticking to pallet racking safety guidelines.
For more information on pallet racking and warehouse storage equipment, as well as what can help get the best from your quotation, contact the team at Monarch Shelving today.
When pallet racking is installed within your premises you will have had it done by a professional and experienced team qualified to ensure it is done correctly and avoid pallet racking collapse.
pallet racking collapse is a huge detriment to a businesses success that costs loss of stock, productivity for the business and lives of the employees in worst-case scenarios. The good news is that these instances are not common, but that does not mean you should not be aware of them.
Collapses are preventable and only happen in cases of harsh damage by forklift use or poor quality materials, installation, improper training around them or a state of maintenance neglect.
The main thing to remember with your system is to never overload your pallets as this will cause the timber to fracture or collapse entirely from the runners. By overloading the beams and frames of the system, you open your warehouse up to considerable risk.
Be sure that you stick to the manufacturer’s recommended weight limits for loading weights. If you have purchased a second-hand system instead of buying one new one, you may never know if the system has experienced overloading, or if there has been any oxidation or rust that may have been coated over previously.
Be sure that your workers understand the limitations by placing weight limit notices around the racking at all times, and be sure that the racking is suitable for the intended load before installing.
Collision is the most common cause of the collapse and has been witnessed on hundreds of online videos. A simple clip from a forklift can cause untold damages to a warehouse operation due to a pallet racking collapse.
To prevent this, several measures can be put into effect starting with fully training your drivers around the racking structure. Add to this by ensuring a racking protection system is in full effects such as column guards and end of racking barriers.
You can limit risks by ensuring that the aisles have adequate room for two picking trucks as well as spacing them out to prevent a full collapse. Speed restrictions should also be in place around the racking as well as highlight floor markings.
By neglecting the above precautions and others that can be implemented you stand at the risk of putting staff, visitors and business in peril as well as opening up the company to tremendous losses and prosecutions. Be smart when it comes to your industrial storage racks and commercial shelving and call on Monarch shelving for the right fit the first time.
Ever wonder how to clean warehouse racking? If you operate or run a warehouse, you know how dirty they can get daily and nowhere is more apparent than on your industrial storage racks.
Over a day they can be victim to dirt and grime from machinery, vehicles, accidents and even workers, not to mention stored products that can spill, leak and leave an impression. Most warehouses have a professional cleaning entity that takes care of a majority of the warehouse, but it is worth ensuring that pallet racking and other storage systems are kept equally as clean.
Keeping a warehouse clean, and more to the point keeping your warehouse storage equipment clean is ensuring all of your stock dust and dirt free. If you make a point in keeping your racking clean, you are ensuring your goods are safe from damage or dirt affecting them.
This ensures that the products leave the warehouse in the same condition that they arrived and reduces any complaints about damaged stock whilst in storage.
A lot of the dust and dirt that gets onto racking comes from floor level, which sits on a specialist resin-mix floor paint which protects the floor and ensures mobility from forklifts and picking trucks when handling the product.
This floor requires regular sweeping and vacuuming and the removal of any obstructions, before applying a mop with warm soapy water to pick up dust and dirt. This plays a huge part in helping to keep your racking clean.
Depending on the kind of commercial shelving you have in your storage facility, it can be constructed from several different materials – which is information you need to know in how to keep it clean.
Once you know what the material is you will need to find a suitable cleaning material for it. Whilst most shelving and racking can be cleaned with a mixture of a damp rag or household cleaner, you need to be sure that whatever you use does not affect the racking, such as if your racking has a wooden shelving layer that can be dampened by any product.
Even a procedure of cleaning your racking has to take health and safety measures seriously. Ideally, you would not undertake the cleaning on your own, and have another person spotting you when working from height. If your company has a mobile elevated platform or cherry picker, be sure to use it when cleaning at elevated levels.
If you are looking to replace existing pallet racking, commercial shelving, or wondering how to clean warehouse racking, contact the team at Monarch shelving today.
Depending on your manufacturer, your pallet racking system will be accommodating to differing weight ratios. Some will be able to withstand more weight than others depending on the size and design of the overall system provided. So ensuring your pallet racking weight limits are correct is extremely important.
Standard racks tend to have a capacity of around 2,500 pounds, so if your requirement is for more than, you need to check that it is suitable for the stored goods you want to stock.
Pallet racking is a system designed for maximum storage and in the most efficient manner possible. By stacking on top of each other, more space is spared on the ground level which provides more maximum storage space.
In this process, employees can easily locate, store and receive goods more efficiently and easily, increasing their productivity. The Frames are usually made from steel to provide the maximum sturdiness and durability, however, their weight capacity can differ so you need to determine if heavy duty shelving and racking are required.
Most of all, pallet racking is designed to be the most accessible product ideal for forklift use in loading and unloading material goods.
To calculate the capacity of your industrial storage racks, you need to discover the beam capacity by multiplying the heaviest pallet load weight by the number of pallet positions per beam level.
Once the beam capacity is known, the calculation of the pallet racking frame capacity will need to be taken. By taking the beam capacity per level of the racking, you can figure out the maximum beam spacing that the system will require.
Pallet racking systems are the number one choice for warehouse environments but it is important to choose the right system for the materials you store.
If you exceed the capacity you are leaving your system at high risk of collapse which can injure or be completely fatal to employees as well as your business operations. If you choose a racking that is not fit for the requirement you are storing, the racking could show immediately to long term wear which can give way at any moment, damaging stock, racking and employee safety.
It is a requirement to take note of the dimensions of your pallet racking weight limits to ensure they are suitable for housing your stock as well as the space required within the workplace.
If you are looking for the ideal and secure pallet racking for your needs, contact the team at Monarch Shelving today.
Safety is the prime consideration when both allocating your warehouse space and choosing the storage within it. When running a warehouse, your worst fears of having an unsafe working environment or adding to the statistics of work-based injuries are always lingering around your head on every decision you make – or they should be if you want warehouse health and safety.
Warehouses indeed have a higher injury rate for work-related accidents, which means they have stricter guidelines when it comes to safety, which is why the choice of ideal warehouse storage equipment is a high area of focus to prevent accidents and injuries.
When you engage with a provider for your warehouse design and storage requirements, you are going to need someone with the right levels of experience and reputation to trust your employee’s wellbeing in their hands.
This means you need to thoroughly research each provider and rate the feedback they have gotten through reviews and customer comments. The cheapest option often results in the cheapest product, so don’t dice with your company’s well being and safety just to save some upfront pennies.
When choosing your pallet racking and industrial storage racks, you have to base them on the size, shape and weight of the items you will be storing. Ensuring that the racking you install is fit for the product reduces the chances of objects falling from overloading.
Consider how these items will be retrieved and plan accordingly. Heavier and bulkier products should be stored lower to ground level to minimize lifting and forklift incidents, and any hazardous chemicals should be clearly labelled and stored.
Your provider will know the full layout and advise on the design for your storage solutions before any assembly of the system. Naturally, there will always be things you may not have considered that will be brought up by the person handling your design.
You need to consider spacing in the aisles to accommodate forklift, workers and picking trucks if you use them. You would also need to confirm that dampness would not affect the structural integrity of the system and the most important factor being that the floor can support the system without the risk of a shift in a seismic event.
You will also need to train your employees, from pickers to forklift drivers, on how to utilise the racking system and to follow guidelines for use of aisles and safety in stacking and shelving.
By taking all necessary precautions and advice when planning warehouse storage equipment, you are helping your business and employees avoid common mistakes and improving your warehouse efficiency.
Contact the team at Monarch Shelving today for the right system for your requirements for better warehouse health and safety.
When having pallet racking installed in your work complex you expect them to last many years without ever needing warehouse racking maintenance.
However, many kinds of incidents can lead to a weakening in your pallet racking, which then opens up the very real possibility of failure and impending collapse. This results in a destroyed product, facility damage, a full stop to workflow and, god forbid, the injury or killing of members of your workforce. Either scenario, it’s going to be the most costly blow to your business and nobody wants it to happen.
To this end, the need to keep an eye on the racking and the warning signs present are of paramount importance. Some things are very obvious to the eye; such as rust on the beams or bent uprights. Others can be more tricky to spot.
Depending on the racking’s overall condition, some of the least obvious can be mistaken as not being such a big deal on the first inspection, but they are gateway problems to the total collapse and should be treated as such.
For starters, you may see that one or more anchor bolts stick up from the footplate. This is a highlight of the rack being off-balance or having suffered a considerable impact. This will require the racking to be rebalanced and the bolts to be replaced. If your workers have complaints about the racking experiencing a swaying, then your safety braces are in the process of failing. This will require an inspection and the replacement of any damaged braces. If the rack does not have braces installed then some must be installed.
When you see flaking paint or tarnish on your beams, you could be facing either too much pressure on that particular segment or exposure to elemental damage. Regardless of how it has come to be, it will need to be replaced.
There are other less apparent considerations that your pallet rack is weakening and therefore requires warehouse racking maintenance. For example, if the wood on your shelving looks noticeably paler then it is becoming brittle and requires replacing the shelf to prevent it cracking. It is also the same with wooden pallets.
When you notice that a steel joint is beginning to fold, this is extremely bad and needs addressing straight away. Naturally, the product will need to be removed quickly and the segment of the rack replaced.
Replacing your pallet racking and industrial storage racks on any of these occurrences or warning signs will be the smartest move to completely avoid fatality to workers and operations. Contact the team at Monarch Shelving for the most reliable warehouse storage equipment available.
At certain points of every year, there is an influx of stock that backs up every aisle of your warehouse, and it tends to be the nightmare of every warehouse manager up and down the country. This is the main reason that warehouse owners are looking for solutions to a more organised warehouse.
In line with expansion, this problem provides the same thought process – you need to get more space. Many directors will automatically jump to the real point; what is this going to cost the business to buy new space? Surprisingly this question is brought up much more than the real question – What could we do to make better use of space?
Some procedures could be put into effect to better maximise your space without the need of extending your operations or property.
If you look over the original plans for your warehouse layout, you will be able to tell if thought for future growth was on the cards from the get-go. Many warehouses were not configured with this in mind, which then leads to a lot of upheavals.
If your stock is pushed up tight against your warehouse walls and stock is harder to find for your workforce, or if you have more levels of damaged stock due to cramming, then simply look at how your layout can be improved by higher storage pallet racking and more streamlined warehouse storage equipment. Implementing this measure will require some downtime so it is best to do it during quieter periods.
Having stock that no longer sells is taking up way too much space than it should have.
By undertaking a stock audit of all your inventory, you can determine the stock you have in comparison to what is needed, and use storage space to put stock that is simply using up valuable space that could be better utilised by more in demand stock.
If your stock is not stacked to the right requirements, or your industrial storage racks are not maximised how they could be, a lot of headaches and stress can be relieved by simply retraining your staff as to how things should be.
The one thing to combat is staff saying they have not had adequate training on anything within the business, and by providing them with training exercises they will feel that you are investing in them and there should be no problems when it comes to space utilisation in the premises.
Instead of buying a second warehouse or extending your current one, evaluate if all of your long-lasting commercial shelving still meets your requirements or if it can be upscaled for longer and more effective use.
Contact the team at Monarch Shelving today for all your organised warehouse solutions for storage.
When you take a look into your current warehouse pallet racking system you will probably be looking at ways to improve the overall operations of your warehouse such as with pallet racking systems in the UK.
Whilst many business owners become complacent with their existing racking layout, they also provide a sense of formality for the management and staff who work with them. Many business owners do not realise that by seeking improvements to racking or even upgrading over time, they are providing the ability to streamline their workforce and improve profitability.
Here we take a look at some tips to help you improve your business operations through your pallet racking systems.
Many businesses carry on operations for many years without properly mapping out the warehouse space.
Having a fully mapped out space plan that details the exact locations of all columns, shipping and receiving, load-bearing walls and other aspects not only provide you with a great layout to help adequately plan changes to your racking operations but also helps to showcase some underutilized areas such as break rooms or disused offices where you can implement further warehouse storage equipment.
Many businesses that established themselves as far back as the 80s may still operate with racking that sticks to older laws of a 30 feet maximum height.
Today, most warehouses take advantage of their racking being able to reach upwards of 40 feet, which is where older systems can now improve their operations by bringing in racking to better utilise that space. If you have forklifts within your operations that can but not reaching the maximum height, then that is quite a waste. Many business owners don’t think vertically when looking for the best use of space.
As a business owner, your key goal in any decision is all centred around the growth of your business, and the same can be said of your overall warehouse premises.
Whilst it is possible to adjust and extend systems over time, having a system upfront that can readily handle the extra product that requires space can save on your operations having to halt at some point to handle the expansion.
Later upgrading can result in calculating all costs with the rack, design, installation and training as well as upgrades to forklifts and other equipment that will need to be changed. By having everything ready from the beginning you save a lot of time and costs down the line.
For those business owners ready to save on the unnecessary distraction and better utilise their space with pallet racking systems in the UK, contact the team at Monarch Shelving today.
There are many considerations to be taken into effect when it comes to investing in pallet racking for your warehouse. Some may slip under the radar of thought whilst others are more obvious such as why you may need industrial pallet racks.
However, for those undertaking this implementation into their warehouse, these are the questions that you need to know the answers to avoid jeopardising the safety and security of products, operations and workforce.
All pallet racking systems are required to be anchored or secured to the floor by the use of bolts. This relates to aisle columns, the exterior and interior of frames also.
They will require a base plate along with industry-standard bolts that meet the requirements for quality and durability. They are all required to make your racks sturdy and upright. The anchor bolts and base plate work to ensure your racks are fully safeguarded from base level threats ranging from a forklift collision to an earthquake should they occur, keeping your safety to a maximum.
Naturally, when it comes to the type of flooring you have within your warehouse structure, it can play into the type of system being installed.
Generally, pallet racking would be anchored to concrete via the use of specialist tools such as wedge and strike anchors. Before anchoring you will need to ensure that it can withstand the weight of the system as well as the pressure. To do this you need to consider the size of the hole in the baseplate, vibrations within the area, flooring material thickness and levelness, as well as mechanical features of the flooring material.
At all times a qualified engineer should be at hand to recommend the appropriate anchoring means, especially when it comes to anchoring in compromised areas.
Ideally, regular inspection should be done to all pallet racking systems by a qualified engineer, especially in regards to repairs or changes to the storage system.
Due to their everyday use, storage racks need to be checked and inspected periodically to highlight any damage or wear and tear of its structure. Whenever an incident happens in connection with any pallet racking, it needs to be flagged for an inspection to reduce any potential fatalities.
Business owners should set their inspection schedule around their use frequency, fully documenting all inspections and results from it.
By undertaking the correct protocols for pallet racking systems you are reinforcing your businesses speed, performance and efficiency, optimizing your warehouse operations and providing a safer environment for the workforce and product.
Contact the team at Monarch Shelving today for any questions related to industrial pallet racks and commercial shelving needs.
Once you have pallet racking designed and installed by experts into your warehouse space, how often is someone delegated to check on it to make sure it is safe and free from damage by making pallet racking inspections?
Most of you probably are thinking hard right now as to who that could be within the business, with the answer being suddenly made apparent that it is no one. That means that potential damage is also overlooked and unreported. This would then result in a nasty surprise whenever those health and safety officials show up, or worse; tragedy happens.
In an ideal world, every company would have a regular racking inspection by a technically competent person that would be recorded. Independent inspections would also take place to present a report identifying all risks, misuses and damage and a proposal to get it fixed.
Pallet racking is generally manufactured from lightweight materials which means that every kind of racking has its limit when it comes to abuse.
The risk from the odd forklift incident can greatly reduce the load-bearing capacity and the reliability of its strength in support. To combat this the racking requires a regular circle of inspection to report on its safety and serviceability. As soon as any incident occurs, it needs to be reported by an employee and inspected instantly, using a system in place to log any incident for future reference. A formal written record would usually be composed following any inspection, with follow up inspections should the first inspection seem to indicate no immediate damage.
Ground-level investigations are the usual unless the damage has been done higher up in the structure. Falling product from a compromised pallet racking system is just as deadly as a full structure collapse, so accidents that occur higher should be treated as no less hazardous.
If damage has occurred you will need to cordon off the area from your workforce, even if picking is required of products. Structural damage can cause instant problems and there is no telling how long the racking can withstand the pressure.
Even though just one section is damaged, it could lead to a full structure collapse if they are all connected causing considerable human risk. Operations should be considered in cautiously moving stock out of the area with as little human element as possible.
Naturally, the pallet racking will need to be replaced with a new system and an operational procedure should be implemented in order to safely work around the risk area, ensuring every employee not only understands the risk factor but also knows how to evacuate in the case of a collapse.
For all pallet racking inspections information and industrial storage racks requirements, contact the team at Monarch Shelving.
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Lancashire, United KingdomOL1 4AB
Tel: 0161 627 3444 or 0161 622 0022
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