Details
There is no question that industrial storage space has become more limited and sparse across North America. With this restricted availability, businesses are forced to rethink traditional warehouse models, and have to start considering all aspects of their available storage areas. Warehouse managers must also understand how critical it is to utilize the existing height in their warehouses, and how doing so truly optimizes their storage solutions.
In the preliminary stages of any racking project, we at NAS (North American Steel) take a comprehensive review of our customers, and their business’ workflow to fully understand their needs. A few important considerations we take into account can be:
- How their business operates
- Any restraints they may have in their facility or operations
- The budget available for storage and racking
From here, our designers and engineers are able to tailor a storage system that meets and exceeds all specified requirements. In this case, our sales team at NAS worked with a direct-to-consumer e-commerce retailer who was faced with a problem many warehouses alike are facing – limited storage space. Utilizing every square-inch to ensure optimized pallet positions was the project’s key focus.
Challenges
Facing highly limited warehousing space as well as a storage system not designed exactly to the needs of an operation is enough to frustrate any growing retail business owner. These were the challenges faced by our client, a prominent e-commerce retailer based in Guelph, ON.
The client had moved into a 250,000 sq. ft. warehouse which initially provided sufficient space to operate. But as their business expanded during the 2020 pandemic, their space rapidly became insufficient to meet the growing needs of their business and expanding customer base. With a combination of bulk storage, an inefficient racking system design, and only small amounts of selective racking, this client was utilizing a storage system that was hindering their daily operations as opposed to it working for them. The lack of selectivity in their storage system was causing bottlenecks in their order picking, while a lack of efficiently organized pallet positions was minimizing their storage capacity.
Solutions
Due to the demand of improved selectivity and storage density for palletized loads, the team at North American Storage designed a system that could help satisfy these needs by focusing on building up, rather than out. This meant building a pallet racking system that utilized the height of the existing building, as opposed to moving in to a larger space or acquiring yet another piece of premium real estate unnecessarily.
By reconfiguring their storage system in a way that was best suited for their business, our client was able to significantly maximize the inventory held, prevent loss of valuable pallet space, improve order picking efficiency, while also ensuring the safety of their workers.
To accomplish all these goals, a custom storage system was designed and built featuring 28′ selective palletized storage. North American Steel’s Selective Pallet racking design installed provided an increase in pick SKU faces for most bay locations, as well as ergonomic pick levels below the knee and above the chest. As this client often moved a plethora of particularly heavy boxes, the selectivity benefit of this storage system was of critical importance.
Summary
Starting from scratch, this project ultimately was an extensive racking overhaul. Once completed, NAS was able to take over 932,000 lbs of steel and more than 28 feet of usable height, and transform this into over 20,000+ pallet positions in less than 250,000 sq. ft of usable warehouse space. Upon completion, our client benefited from substantial improvements to their storage operations in their new facility. They are able to sufficiently store all their products in a highly organized manner while also choreographing a seamless order-picking system.
To ensure that this new storage system met their expectations, the team at North American Storage worked diligently from beginning to end and provided significant improvements to their operations that is built to last for many years to come.
Are you interested in learning how to improve your warehouse storage operations? Please contact us here to speak to one of our industrial storage experts right away!
