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November 2009 Material Handling Tips & Information Newsletter

Issue #69

This month we have an amazing (and frightening) video of just how easily pallet rack can collapse and domino into a serious danger, an article on pushback rack load types and how not to sabotage your rack system, a comparison between ways to protect an often-overlooked component - dock door guides, and also some new conveyor white papers.

Massive Pallet Rack Collapse - and it was Totally Preventable

VIDEO: This forklift accident illustrates the importance of properly protecting pallet rack upright frames. The driver didn’t have much room to accelerate, but didn’t need much velocity to hit the rack hard enough to compromise the upright and start a domino effect that destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars of merchandise (this was a Russian company, but forklift damage knows no national boundaries) and endanger warehouse employees. Utilizing bollards, steel guard rails, or upright rack frame post protectors might have prevented it. Note: No one was hurt - and that was just sheer luck.

Get your Pushback Rack Load Right

Push back rack systems are excellent high density storage solutions — perhaps the most economical way to squeeze space out of a crowded warehouse. All loads are stored and retrieved from the same aisle. This reduces the number of aisles needed in a facility, freeing up more space for storage. Aisles can take a great deal of space up in a typical warehouse, so by implementing a pushback pallet rack system, you essentially swap selectivity for space. Push back rack systems provide a Last-In-First-Out (LIFO) inventory rotation, so you have to be certain your load fits. If it does, congratulations — you’ve just saved a lot of space. But there are issues that can arise when pushback rack is inappropriately specified or utilized...

More Conveyor White Papers

We just finished adding 3 new Conveyor White Papers, including helpful information on "Critical Product and Load Orientation," a "Picking, Packing and Loading Application Matrix," and "Sortation System Controls Comparisons" table. All of these documents are PDF files, and all of them open in new windows. They’re all single-page, designed for quick downloading and reading. Check them out.
 

How to Protect Dock Doors from Forklift Impacts

In almost every warehouse, manufacturing facility, or commercial storage operation of any size, you’ll find two things — forklifts and overhead dock doors. If that building has been in place for any substantial length of time, you’ll also find dinged, dented, ruined or replaced dock door tracks. While many operations take steps to use guard rails or bollards to shield their critical machinery, dock doors can be left out. There are several options to protect them, and we review which may or may not work for you...