Guide: how to choose the right type of shelves for your business

Source: freepik.com 

Getting the right storage solution for your business is the best way to optimize your warehouse operations. This means that when using your warehouse space effectively, you can easily maximize storage capacity and increase inventory capacity. The best way to fulfill these demands and get the most out of your storage options is to install a personalized system, designed to suit your needs. 

In this article you can find some tips that will help you choose wisely, whether you are a company specialised in eCommerce, retail or distribution, or other sectors in need to equip or upgrade their logistic or commercial space.

Before you settle for a specific racking system, you must consider the available surface and height of your future warehouse building, to ensure it would fit the number of pallets, volume, size, and weight of each one of them to be stored. Moreover, you should take into account the throughput and the type of materials handling equipment. Also, the right storage solution will make sure it avoids misplacing or losing items, simultaneously ensuring workers are always safe. In other words, it should improve inventory handling, density, and turns. 

First of all, you need to study the different types of shelving, after planning and analyzing the products and business needs so that you can make the right decision. 

What are some of the most commonly used types of warehouse storage 

They will allow your business to face the increasing pressure of the market and respond faster to the demands:

1. Pallet racks. An easy solution that provides you with good access to your goods, pallet racking is safe, robust, durable, and easy to assemble. Better productivity and efficiency are guaranteed, especially when, in the selective racking method, the pallets are loaded/unloaded coming from the front of the racking system.

• Purpose – it’s a storage system that stores pallets of material in rows on metal shelves. It features multiple levels of shelving that are accessible by forklifts and are used to increase storage density by using vertical space. 
• Place – being horizontally space-saving, it is of very much use in high bay warehouses.
• Main feature – reduced time spent loading and unloading product or stock lines.

2. Drive-in racks. If you wish for optimization of your storage capacity, you can opt for these racks, as they use aisles for storage. Extremely safe, they are an ideal choice if you are dealing with huge quantities of homogenous products, as this type of shelving follows the last-in, first-out management of goods. The forklifts load and unload the goods by entering through the front and then move back after placing them where needed. This system can be easily automated, using satellites, electrical devices that bring pallets to the end of the rack block, being either manually controlled (with remote control) or semi-automatic.

• Purpose – storage for a wide range of big and bulky items.
• Place – this type of shelving is ideal for cold or temperature-controlled rooms.
• The main feature – creating more space, increasing the warehouse storage capacity by 35%.
• Recommendations: they can be used for homogeneous products in large quantities of pallets for each code/destination/customer.

3. Cantilever. The advantage of the cantilever is the easy retrieval and storage of goods that have different sizes, shapes, and weights. For example, if you need to store long goods that are difficult to place on normal shelves, this racking system is adjustable, as it has arms and columns made in different sizes. Therefore, the cantilever shelving is customizable based on your preference and provides easier access, selection, and better adjustability. 

• Purpose – storing long goods, difficult to place on normal shelves, such as packages of pipes or plates, profiles, but also pallets or metal containers. 
• Place – the arms and columns of the cantilever are made in different sizes, so as to easily meet the requirements of adaptability imposed by the available space and the shape of the goods.
• Main feature – cantilever construction allows overhanging structures without additional support, extending horizontally and being supported at only one end.

4. Light Picking storage system. Intended for picking products of great versatility and for light goods. The easy assembly of different other structures and accessories attached to the metal shelves makes it the ideal solution for simplifying light and medium goods picking, using gangways for access to higher levels. Industrial shelves, office shelves, or even shop displaying racks, are perfect static shelving for products with limited weight and which do not need handling with the support of a pallet.  

• Purpose – picking light merchandise.
• Place – industrial environments, shelves for office environments, and stores.
• Main feature – it can be used for products that do not need to be handled with the support of a pallet.

5. Multi-tier racking. Given the fact that it has the possibility of mounting gangways, this metallic racking system allows the creation of multi-level structures for easy access to upper levels. Being a manual storage system, it provides balanced use of the warehouse’s height and space. Its greatest advantages are the direct and safe access by stairs to each load level and the high aisles and stairs to make the most of the space. 

• Purpose – storing light goods on multi-level structures.
• Place –  storing boxes, archives.
• Main feature – easy to use, due to modular components.

6. Mezzanines – Improving the use of space, mezzanine floors can multiply several times your floor area, by extending it vertically. Mezzanine flooring is easy to assemble – being a modular racking based on a structure with removable components, no other special mounting tools are required. Being compatible with any type of requirement, mezzanines are customizable and proper for lots of setups, providing a great level of safeness. Storage capacity is also improved due to large spaces between the support columns (free openings), which allow easy movement and handling for machines and personnel.

• Purpose – to cover a specific area of a building rather than extending over the entire floor space.
• Place – used for storage, office space, and presentation (shops, showrooms), workshops and laboratories.
• Main feature – installed to maximize unused vertical space, providing additional room above and below and it can be built free of existing structures.

7. Mobile Archive – Maximising space in terms of storage and workflow, mobile archive eliminates the need for multiple aisles and offers quick and easy access to a floating aisle for stored documents. These archiving shelves have the option of keeping them secure, restricting access by locking mobile units together.

• Purpose – to archive documents, box storage, lever arch files, and hanging files.
• Place – office areas. 
• Main feature – increases floor space and gives faster access to stored items.

8. Integrated systems. The automated and semi-automated systems will help you generate the best business results for your company.

• Purpose – to automate and optimize warehouse operations to generate the best business results, as well as use the space efficiently.
• Place – warehouses;
• Main feature – ensuring efficiency, mobility, safety and increased productivity for your workers.

ProfiCircle provides optimal solutions so you can increase storage capacity and reduce delivery time. Furthermore, it offers a personalized view of your storage needs for your business, helping you choose between metal shelves, industrial shelves, storage shelves, archiving shelves, pallet shelves, light shelves, mezzanine shelves, drive-in shelves and others to make sure you have the right type of shelves for your warehouse. 

If you have more questions about which storage solution is the right one for your project, our experts stand at your disposal.