The basic equipment warehouses need has not changed a lot in decades. Most warehouses handle their goods manually. There may use forklift trucks to carry pallets of goods, but single items are picked from shelves by hand and moved with manual handling equipment. Standard shelves or racks and flatbed trolleys are fine for many warehouses, but a warehouse equipment manufacturer supplies a range of specialised equipment for situations where standard equipment is not appropriate.
Most warehouses operate in a similar way – goods arrive and are then stored on racks or shelves. Items that are needed by customers or other sections of the business are picked from their storage location and either packed and dispatched or taken to where they are needed.
Warehouse equipment manufacturers supply the storage and handling equipment to make these systems efficient
Furniture
Furniture manufacturers like Chesterfield and Forest Sofa store components in storage areas ready to be used to manufacture chairs, beds, sofas and other items. After furniture has been manufactured, it needs to be stored before dispatching to the furniture store or the individual customer.
Beds, chairs, settees, and other furniture are heavy and can be awkwardly shaped. The warehouse equipment manufacture supplies specialist storage racks that can efficiently store items, and trolleys to safely move furniture.
An example is equipment for sofas. Using standard shelving, you cannot safely stack sofas on top of one another unless you use more than one shelf. Specialist sofa racks store sofas two high using one unit. Sofas need two people to carry, but one person can move a sofa using a specialist sofa trolley.
Beds need specialist trolleys and racks, and the mattresses that go on top of them require their own specialised storage solution. Chair backs also need to be stored efficiently.
Warehouse equipment manufacturers have worked with the furniture industry to come up with innovative designs that make the storing and moving of furniture easier and safer.
Windows
Window manufacturers such as Safestyle and Everest have a big safety challenge to contend with – glass sheets are potentially dangerous if broken, so it is vital that glass is moved and stored safely.
The best solution for glass are A-frames – either static ones for storage or those with wheels for safely moving glass sheets. With good training and high-quality A-frames, injury risks are minimised.
Garments
Clothing retailers like Phase Eight, Joules and Crew Clothing keep their clothes looking good by hanging them on garment rails in the warehouse and in their shops. A single rail design is fine for dresses, suits and other garments. To store or display short and longer garments on one rail, there are split level rails or double rails. Formal wedding and prom dresses need Z-style rails with shoulders that protect the clothes from hitting walls of other obstacles when they are moved.
Sometimes, clothing retailers need temporary garment rails to deal with surges in demand or for displaying clothes at exhibitions. Collapsible rails are the solution here, as they can be assembled or disassembled easily without the use of tools. Garment rails can be designed so that several rails can be stored together when not needed without taking unnecessary space.
Online orders
Many retailers are experiencing difficult trading conditions on the high street. To deal with a drop in sales, retailers are expanding their online shops. This requires the reorganisation of their warehouse or the building of new ones.
Online customers expect quick service with their orders delivered within a day or two of ordering. It is vital that order processing systems can achieve the speedy delivery times that customers expect. The warehouse equipment manufacturer can help with the design of a warehouse to fulfil online orders.
Shelves or racks need to fit the available space to maximise storage. The whole height of the warehouse can be used to store items, with racks of shelving holding many levels of shelves.
Trolleys used by pickers should be heavy duty ones that cope with travelling several miles a day with heavy loads. Tubular steel trolleys with strong swivel casters will perform well and last a long time. For small items, trolleys with tote boxes are useful.
When order items reach the packing stations, packers need to be able to process orders quickly to get them ready for dispatch. Packing benches need shelves to store the tools and materials needed for packing.
There also needs to be an area to process returns, which uses similar equipment to the packing stations where returned goods are unpacked, not packed, on packing benches and tables.
Warehouse management software is used to help locate items and track the progress of orders. Some automated systems go beyond the warehouse, monitoring deliveries to the warehouse and tracking parcels with the courier service as they are on their way to customers.
When planning a new warehouse to handle online orders, a warehouse equipment manufacturer should be consulted on all aspects of equipping the warehouse.
Bespoke warehouse equipment
Sometimes, a business has warehouse equipment requirements that aren’t met by standard equipment, but this needn’t problem if you use a British warehouse equipment manufacturer. To make equipment in custom sizes is easy. Warehouse equipment made from tubular steel is made in small batches by skilled metalworkers. They do not need new moulds or retooling to change the dimension of any equipment.
If the needs of a business are more specialised, an engineer/designer from the manufacturer can visit the warehouse to assess what needs to be stored or moved. In consultation with the business team, the designer will come up with a new equipment design or suggest that modifying existing equipment is the best solution.
A manufactures that does all the manufacturing processes in house will be able to create prototype equipment for testing in a short time, with no lengthy shipment times.
A UK warehouse equipment manufacturer works closely with businesses to come up with innovative manual handling and storing solutions. At Steely Products, we’re proud to help warehouses of all sizes and types by providing bespoke storage and work aid solutions. To find out more, why not fill in the contact form below?
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