You make investments in your warehouse every day. It might be weekly safety training meetings with your team, automation with a new conveyor system, or upgrading your pallet racking system. Whatever you invest into your warehouse needs to be protected. While sometimes that protection might be obvious, like maintaining your conveyors, in other instances the kind of protection that you need might not be as apparent. One area where our warehouse consultants often see a lack of protection is on the uprights of your pallet racking system. Many warehouses in the Illinois area seem to believe their racking systems are invincible and cannot be damaged because they don’t both installing the necessary warehouse equipment to keep it safe. This could end up costing their business a lot of money, time, and potentially even their customers.

Why Your Pallet Racking Needs Protection

You pallet racking takes a lot of abuse throughout the day, especially if forklifts, pallet jacks, and hand trucks are in use (as they are in most warehouse environments). All of this equipment can easily damage your pallet racking. A forklift operator could misjudge a turn and clip the end of a pallet rack, or they might not check their clearance and run into the upright of the racking system. While the visible damage that this causes might seem negligible to you, it could actually weaken the structure. This puts your warehouse in danger of experiencing a racking collapse, which could end up destroying your inventory and even seriously hurting your employees. Preventing this kind of damage is key to keeping your warehouse safe and ensuring the pallet racking you’ve purchased for your warehouse remains in good condition for as long as possible.

It’s important to speak with an experienced warehouse consultant to determine what protection you need for your racking system and then to get it properly installed.

How to Protect Your Racking

Upright Protection

One of the primary ways of protecting your pallet racking is with upright protection. The uprights of your pallet racking system are the vertical beams to which the shelving pieces are attached. There are two main types of upright protection: post protection and barriers at the end of the racks.

• Column protection. This protection wraps around the upright posts of the racking system, usually providing some kind of cushioning that can take the impact of an accident with a forklift or other warehouse equipment.
• End of rack barriers. These barriers sit at the end of a pallet racking aisle and prevent warehouse equipment from running into the end of the row. This sort of impact can seriously weaken the system and you may not notice the damage for a period of time.

Other Types of Pallet Racking Protection

The uprights aren’t the only piece of the racking system that should be protected. You should also consider installing pallet stops. These help forklift operators ensure that the pallets are positioned properly on the racking system to create an even weight load and are safely in place without hanging over the back of the racking.

An Ounce of Prevention…

While purchasing protection products for you pallet racking is a great way to help prevent accidents from causing damage, it’s even more effective to try to prevent those accidents from occurring in the first place. You can prevent accidents with your pallet racking from happening by:

• Training your team early and often. Make sure your team members are aware of the dangers of pallet racking accidents and that they should report accidents immediately in order to prevent injuries and damages.
• Sending forklift operators for additional training. The safest forklift operators are going to be the ones who have been through training again and again. Once is never enough, so invest in repeat training for your forklift operators.
• Optimize your warehouse setup. A warehouse that has aisles that are too narrow or doesn’t have the appropriate storage space for its inventory is putting itself at risk for accidents and damage.

Taking steps to prevent damage can help your warehouse ultimately save a lot of time and money. You won’t have to worry about production stopping to repair a collapsed rack, nor will you incurr the costs that come with worker’s compensation claims. It truly is a case where an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

We Can Help You Protect Your Warehouse

 

RMH Systems in Chicago carries a variety of upright protection and other pallet protection devices so we can help you find the system that’s right for your warehouse. We carry upright post protectors which attach to your floor and surround the post of your racks, protecting them from buckling as well as run-ins with the forklift. We also carry upright protection for your pallet racks from WorldPro, which offers custom sizes, shapes, and designs in powder-coated yellow. Additionally, we offer snap-on upright protection that takes only seconds to install. We’ll make sure you have the protection you need while staying within your budget.

Our team will help you order the protection that you need to ensure both your pallet racks and your team stays safe. Give us a call at 800-851-4995 and we’ll get your order placed for the upright protection you need. Whatever it is you need to keep your warehouse looking its best and operating at peak efficiency, RMH has it! Place your order over the phone or online today.