Protect Your Racking System During The Holiday Season With These Suggestions
When you've got a pallet racking system set up in your retail warehouse, you have to regularly monitor the racks to ensure that they can withstand all the boxes and products you're got on them. However, it is even more important that you do everything you can to protect your racking system during the holiday season, when your company is likely to get more boxes and pallets than you handle all year long. Use the following tips so you can feel confident that your racking system can withstand loads during the holiday rush.
Respect Load Limits
If you and your employees have been using your racking system for a long time, you may have forgotten what the load limits are for your racks. However, overloading the racks, even if they are made of steel, may cause them to buckle or collapse. It is smart to ensure that every worker knows what the limit is; it is a good idea to put plaques with limit information directly on the racks themselves so everyone remains aware of the weight being put onto the racks.
If you have more merchandise than usual, instead of overloading the racks you might consider getting extra racks and putting them up as needed.
Leave Enough Room for Forklifts
You might be setting up additional racks to accommodate the holiday rush and more equipment, but when you do that, it can be easy to forget that forklifts need to be able to fit between all of your racks without a problem. Try to leave adequate space between the steel racks as you put them up. You might feel some pressure to make the aisles narrow so you can put up more racks to put pallets on, but without enough room for forklifts and other equipment, you won't be able to get the pallets in without risking injury and damage.
Get Post Protectors and Double Columns
Even during slow times of the year, forklifts can bump into the racks. To protect your racks from getting chinks and damage during the busy holiday season, consider buying some post protectors for each rack so you can stop the machines from hitting them. Near the bottom of your racks, you can also put double columns in place to further keep your racks safe.
Now that you've got some idea of what you need to do to during the holiday rush to protect your racking system, make use of the suggestions above. Work with racking system experts who can provide more information.