For many food and beverage producers, there is an increased emphasis on full case and layer picking, especially when making route deliveries.  This is driven by an increase in smaller, more frequent orders and market demand for a wider range of product variants. The consequence is that warehouse operations are becoming increasingly labour-intensive and expensive.

Many businesses need extra space for day-to-day storage, handling and picking activities and yet free headspace often remains unused. Storage equipment providers will tell you that pallet racking will effectively use the overhead room creating better storage density, but as we know, not all businesses need to store more pallets.

There is another way.

Dr Murray Clarke, Structural Design Manager, Dematic, which manufactures the ColbyRACK range of storage equipment, previews some of the key changes in a new standard covering the design of steel storage racking systems – AS4084-2012, which was released on February 29th 2012.