A lot of warehouses store their products on pallets. Whether it be fresh fruit or microwave ovens on these trays, every supplier needs an efficient way to store them.
That is what pallet racking is, a giant shelving solution for storing hundreds or even thousands of pallets in a much more efficient method than single placement. wood pallet racks can be stacked 4 or 5 rows high (depending on the height of your warehouse) meaning that you can fit 4 or 5 pallets in the footprint of one.
Different Styles Of Pallet Racks
Depending on what you are storing depends on what arrangement of warehouse pallet racking that you need. I will cover some of the more common methods below and explain how they work.
Selective pallet racking looks like a book shelf in a library. Two rows of pallets are placed side by side. Each row of pallets is accessible with a forklift by a thorough fare through the middle. This means that every pallet is accessible all of the time however it does take up a lot of space. You can expand on this with double deep pallet racks which entail four rows of pallets next to each other. Two rows are accessible from each side. A special attachment is required from the forklift to reach the middle pallets.
For maximum space usage there is another common system called push back pallet racks. These involve several rows back to back with a rail for the pallets running through from one side to the next. The rail is set on a slight angle. Pallets are placed at the higher end of the rail and are ‘pushed back’ by the next load until they reach the end of the rail. Here another forklift can pick them up and load them to a truck. This is a great way to store stock that is waiting to be shipped out.
Used Pallet Racks
If you are considering buy pallet racking for your business I recommend looking into used pallet racking. Seeing as these are essentially shelves, a used set can be bought at near new condition. This will save you a lot of money in setting up a new warehouse especially if you only own a small business and just need a small amount of racking. Most retailers of pallet racks will also sell used pallet racking and usually they will include a warranty.