MOBILE SHELVING
- Loading capacity: 750 lbs/ft, 1000 lbs/ft
- Drive: manual, mechanical, electric
- Made in Canada
- Lifetime warranty
- Parts storage area
- Maintenance departments
- Manufacturers
- Distribution
Mobile shelving allows you to increase your inventory or reduce your storage space. How is it possible? By eliminating traffic aisles, mobile shelving recovers up to 70% of your floor space or maximizes existing space by adding rows of shelving. Mounted on manually or mechanically driven rails, a mobile shelving system tightly groups rows of shelving when not in use, saving a lot of space. Do you know how much the square foot of your building is worth?
How do mobile shelves work?
If the operations in your parts or industrial maintenance department are adapted to the use of metal shelving, you have surely noticed the need for circulation aisles. Indeed, to allow your employees to navigate through the storage shelving, you must create spaces between them. However, these circulation aisles represent wasted storage space.
Mobile shelving makes it possible to regain the space occupied by the circulation aisles and transform it into additional storage space or into a more productive space (e.g.: a workstation, a service bay). To do this, the metal shelving is installed on mobile carriers placed on rails installed in the floor of the parts department. The mobile shelving carrier is operated using an easily accessible crank handle at the end of the shelving section. By activating the crank, you can move the carrier and the rows of shelving on it from left to right. Moving a carrier will also move subsequent carriers.
A mobile shelving storage space only needs one circulation aisle. To access the desired parts, the user only has to move all the shelving to the left or right of the part location. The user will therefore create his circulation aisle as needed. Subsequently, this aisle can be closed to create another one elsewhere.
What are the limitations of mobile shelving?
Mobile shelving has several advantages and some limitations. Here are a few:
Mobile shelving is ideal for smaller teams
Mobile shelving will not be well suited to a company where several clerks or employees will prepare orders in parallel. Because the circulation aisle constantly changes location, two clerks working at the same time would constantly be in conflict over the location of the aisle. Worse, accidents could occur if one of the clerks moves the mobile shelving while his colleague is in the aisle. It should be noted that it is possible to provide two aisles instead of just one, but doing so reduces the space optimization.
Mobile shelving can reduce picking rate
The main goal of mobile shelving is the optimal use of space. Because some products are “hidden” and not accessible at all times, the user must first activate the crank handle to gain access to the correct aisle, an operation that takes a few seconds. The positioning of the products in the mobile shelving will therefore have to be carefully considered; products of the same family or complementary should be grouped together. That said, an increase in productivity can be expected if the surface area of the storage department is reduced greatly following the installation of the mobile shelving due to the lesser distance travelled by the workers. If this last factor is important to you, a vertical storage system could also be interesting.
When should you choose mobile shelving?
Like many warehouse space optimization projects, the first step should be a thorough analysis of your products, operations and space. Luckily, the MSK Canada team can help you with this task. Our team of industrial engineering specialists can analyze your needs and make the best recommendations for your application.