Commercial Shelving

The benefits of commercial widespan shelving provide both the motivation and the return on investment that justifies their procurement in the first place. The variety of commercial shelving is extensive, ranging from smaller, portable commercial shelves and racks to heavy duty industrial commercial pallet racking systems. The intent behind this diversity is to provide the most efficient conversion of floor space and vertical cube space into an optimum environment for one or more specific types of contents. As a general principle, any item or container that features symmetric or proportional dimensions and has at least one flat surface can be stored on some sort of commercial shelf or metal rack. This is because shelving systems themselves are rectangular in design and provide horizontal storage space in ascending rows. Round containers can be stored on shelves provided they too have a flat surface on the end with a sufficient radius to balance and support their weight. Irregularly sized materials such as tubing, pipe, furniture, Sheetrock, and flooring supplies normally require more specialized storage areas such as those provided by cantilever racks.

Because symmetry and balance determine which materials you can store on heavy duty commercial shelves, weight plays a secondary role in determining which units you will need for your facility. Most 18 gauge and 20 gauge steel shelving units can easily support 400-450 lbs in weight. This is normally sufficient for the average crate or box, and because these commercial shelves feature sufficiently compact builds to be positioned in a number of places, anything from stockrooms to the entirety of a wall can be reorganized with as many of these units as you need to stack and store materials, products, supplies, tools, and even paperwork. (Some of our smaller shelving systems routinely find their way into the offices of managers who use them for easy access to drawings and materials that need to be worked on throughout the day).

Larger commercial shelves, such as cantilever racks are meant for more heavy duty storage. If you are storing parts in large crates, any number of industrial strength shelves can help you safely and efficiently do this. Your choices are best determined by considering three factors when making your selection. The first is safety. With extremely large items or heavy containers, make absolutely certain that you invest in a commercial shelving system whose weight capacity exceeds the total weight of items. Maxing out a brand new storage system is never a good idea. A worker may not be aware of this, store additional materials on a system already at full capacity, and cause the unit to become unstable. The second is accessibility. If you only need to retrieve items from the front of the shelf, commercial wide span systems offer you some of the most powerful storage units in existence and the added stability of resting against a wall. Open ended systems, however, are often required for items that have to be retrieved by a team of people continually throughout the day, such as you see in many assembly lines. Finally, the actual length, height, and depth of the commercial shelf you invest in really needs to be assessed in terms of floor space/vertical cube space conversion. The total dimensions of a shelf are not always indicators of the actual interior, usable storage space. To make certain every square cubic inch pays your back for your investment, talk to your material handling specialist about usable storage solutions, weight capacity, accessibility, and methods of ensuring the unit remains stable and secure in every conceivable scenario.

Easy Rack maintains a full selection of small, mid-sized, and heavy duty steel commercial racking systems, including wide span units that can be used in places ranging from service center areas behind the front desk to large warehouses where voluminous storage must be consolidated along the walls to make way for heavy traffic. If cost is an issue, our procurement and distribution network can locate any commercial shelf you find on our website and obtain it for you in quality, used condition—sometimes for a discount of up to 40%.

Shelving & Storage Solutions

Easy Rack storage solutions and shelves include everything from pallet racks for general pallet storage racks to medium and heavy duty cantilever racks. Both lines of material handling products offer flexibility and customization. High density storage, tool storage, and parts organization can be accomplished with any number of bin storage cabinets and bar racks, maximizing your floor space and converting unused vertical cube space in the process.

Easy Rack specialists can answer all questions you have about which work lights and loading dock light fixtures work best with your specific operations. If you can not find what you are looking for call us toll free at 1-888-776-3720 and we will find it for you or visit our material handling blog archives for valuable information.

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