Author: Site Editor Publish Time: 2024-05-28 Origin: Site
Do you handle a wide range of warehouse goods and want to know which racking system is best for you? This post discusses the main types of racks for a warehouse and highlights their advantages and disadvantages.
A warehouse rack is an industrial shelf made of steel structures used to store your goods in an organized manner, either in boxes or on special pallets.
Your knowledge about the types of warehouse racks is key to helping you maximize your warehouse space.
You can broadly group warehouse racking systems into either pallet racking or picking racks.
If you deal in large quantities of palletized goods, then your warehouse needs a suitable type of pallet rack, such as multi-tier racking, or long-span racking, etc.
However, if you regularly pick small quantities of items to be stored, you will find suitable rack-picking solutions such as carton flow racks.
The gravity flow racking system relies on the gravitational force while storing and retrieving your pallet. Its subcategories are:
These are racks equipped with rollers that rely on gravity to move pallets to storage positions.
Carton Flow Racks
Carton flow racks rely on gravity and have a specific design for goods ready for picking.
Advantages:
Provides high-density storage - optimizes warehouse storage space
Allows for adjustments to fit different pallets or cartons’ dimensions
Reduced labor costs
Allows for easy picking of boxes
Easy and less costly to design and configure
Drawbacks:
It is a costly investment
It requires regular maintenance for smooth operation.
A cantilever racking system is a warehouse solution for storing heavy and long materials. There are single-sided or double-sided cantilever racks.
Advantages:
It provides an easy way to store long and heavy non-palletized items.
Maximizes vertical storage space
You can adjust the rack to suit the length of your material.
Drawbacks:
The rack is costly to design because of its heavy-duty structure
You require an extended horizontal space for its installation
It cannot accommodate your palletized goods
The Mezzanine storage rack is a racking system that is elevated from the flow to increase the storage area. Its most common options are:
The support structures of the lower storage racks support this type of storage space.
A multi-tier mezzanine has several storage floors within your warehouse space.
Advantages:
It maximizes the use of vertical space
Allows for easy monitoring of other warehouse operations
You can customize the design to suit your specific storage needs
Enhances warehouse safety and easy accessibility to stored items
Drawback:
The initial cost is high.
Requires larger horizontal space
This rack system resembles a standard rack solution. However, it is customized to occupy a smaller space. The system also has a narrow aisle. Access to pallets is through special equipment.
Advantages:
High-density storage ensures full optimization of warehouse space
You can directly access all stored pallets
Reduced operation costs
Drawback:
Access to pallets is slow
The system requires special forklifts that are expensive
High initial costs
The designers created selective pallet racks to facilitate the easy storage or removal of pallets or a group of tied cartons without worrying about removing other pallets.
Key Benefits:
With a proper installation layout, here are some benefits you will get from having selective pallet racks in your warehouse.
You can store or retrieve any pallet at any time because it is highly selective.
It is easy to install, access, and maintain without affecting other stored products
The storage and removal of pallets require less time, making it highly efficient.
Selective pallet racks allow for easy handling of different products.
Drawbacks:
A passage space or an aisle is required between your storage rows. Therefore, the storage density of your warehouse remains lower.
To compensate for aisle space, you may require a higher floor space leading to high rental costs.
You are likely to incur high labor costs because of the need to use small forklifts in several narrow warehouse aisles.
When the design or installation is not properly done, it can expose warehouse workers and forklift operators to risks.
For goods that require high-density storage, this will not be your best racking option, because you may need to spend on renting a warehouse with high-floor space to suit your storage needs.
If you operate a large warehouse, you will spend more on acquiring several small forklifts to store and retrieve pallets.
Both drive-in and drive-through racks provide high-density storage with a reduced number of aisles.
Drive-in racking is a one-aisle compact racking system where the last pallet to be stored is the first to be retrieved(Last in, Fast Out)
Advantages:
Compact for optimized storage capacity
The warehouse optimally uses the storage space, with only one aisle remaining.
Easy and quick access to pallets during storage or retrieval
Enhanced safety during pallet storage and retrieval
Quality control of stored products is enhanced
Integration with other storage areas is easy as it allows for storing different pallets.
Suitable for products with expiry dates
Drawbacks:
Suitable for only one type of product
Because of its LIFO system, inventory management can be a challenge
Since a forklift operator must drive when retrieving pallets, the risk of causing damage is high.
For a drive-through rack, the last pallet stored is the first to be retrieved or last in first out.
Advantages:
Optimizes storage space
You can access the pallets more easily than with the drive-in system
The risk of goods getting damaged during access is low
Suitable for high-rotation products
Drawback:
Require two access points which reduces the warehouse’s storage density
More expensive compared to a drive-in rack solution
Compared to the drive-in system, inventory control poses more challenges.
This refers to a racking system in which, with the help of rollers or shuttles, you stack pallets by pushing the existing pallets from two to six pallet positions deep.
Advantages:
Cost-effective because it allows you to double or triple your storage space
The racking system allows for both high-selective and high-density storage needs.
Forklifts operate only within the aisle, limiting damage risks
Maintenance costs are low
You can adapt the rack to suit other racking systems
Drawbacks:
It is a FILO racking system. Therefore, it is not suitable for the storage of perishable goods
Some goods are not robust enough to withstand the pushing technique
You can only access and remove pallets at the front of the aisle
Push-back racking has a depth limit
The Rado shuttle racking system is a high-density type of warehouse racking solution with special rails for the movement of a remote-controlled shuttle vehicle.
Advantages:
It optimizes warehouse storage space because it occupies about 80% of the warehouse space
Its fast operation saves you time and makes it more efficient
Operators can learn and use the racking system with ease
The shuttle can operate in low and high-temperature conditions than humans
It ensures the precise arrangement of pallets than other racking systems
The rack design is sturdy, allowing shuttles to operate inside the rack and forklifts to operate externally.
The use of shuttles eliminated damage risks
You can remotely control the shuttles. So, it keeps your labor costs low.
Drawbacks
The initial cost is high
Your operator requires training to operate and maintain the system
It does not support pallets or items that require random picking
Before you decide on the types of warehouse racks to install, consult an expert rack designer and installer to assess your needs.
The nature of your products, storage requirements, warehouse design, and budget are factors you must consider.
Contact us for racking solutions tailored to suit your warehouse storage needs.
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