Racking and storage in warehouses

In the complicated quest for better logistics set-up, the presence of vehicles is frequently overlooked and managers are often puzzled why all the careful planning resulted in a site where turning circles are difficult, access is sometimes totally impossible, and employees feel as though they are crossing a busy and dangerous highway.

According to Crown Equipment, it is quite simply a fundamental - yet very common - error to ignore the importance of planning around the lift truck fleet.

The company says that any warehouse setting up from scratch is making a major investment in racking and storage equipment and is mindful of gaining optimal use from it.

With this in mind, not planning the factory floor around lift trucks is somewhat like not taking into account the container ships when planning a port facility, or discounting the physical requirements of planes when laying down plans for an airport.

Racking is expensive and is easily damaged by forklift tynes spearing them or the sides or rear of a lift truck hitting it. Setting protective bollards is one solution, but the objective is to set up a very functional racking and floor layout right from the very start so that this type of protection is rarely required.

Bollards are hard objects, and although they can be depended on to protect racking it will still cause damage to an expensive lift truck and potentially force it away from active service, hence the downtime is costly.

Optimising rack position sets out to achieve two main aims: the first is to give the materials handling equipment as much room to move as possible and keep the traffic flowing, and the second aspect is to utilise as well as possible the vertical space available to maximise storage and allow fast and safe handling by high reach trucks. Crown Equipment says that it is one thing to go as high as possible, but every consideration has to be given to how this is positioned as the consequences can be grave for lift truck operators and other floor staff should the loading be dangerous at a height several pallet spaces high.

If lift trucks have to frequently make way for one another, queue and wait while other units go about their business, or find areas of the floor where turning and access is difficult or impossible, then the materials handling staff behind the wheel eventually feel as though the racking is a hindrance rather than a storage facility.

Such frustrations can generate poor driver judgment, rash decisions, excess speeding in the wrong locations, or a level of anger not acceptable in the workplace that not only is counter productive, but poses a danger to other personnel.

It is danger of this nature that carries consequences that can cost companies a lot of money in compensation and cause debilitating injury to people.

Although lift truck activity can involve the majority of ground space within a warehouse, clever floor layout goes to a lengthy extent to more or less isolate the heavy traffic areas, thereby keeping vehicles and foot personnel as far apart as possible.

Unhindered, direct access should also link this section with whatever dock facilities are being used. It is not uncommon for company staff to put a huge amount of energy into what they see as an efficient layout for floor staff, to find out when it is too late that the transport link between shop floor and transport dock is inconvenient, blocked, or worse still, a dangerous path on which to take a lift truck. Wise use of vertical space is the difference between efficient 'first time' pallet handling and costly double handling. Crown Equipment says racking occupies a large amount of vertical space of a site but often there is a lack of understanding that there is a smart way to set up racking and also a not-so-smart way to do it.

Racking isn't merely for storing stock, it has to undergo optimised positioning for stock handling and then it has to work in harmony with lift trucks and their operators.