By Mike Budz
Sales Engineer
Thomas Conveyor & Equipment Co
Pushback Racking allows your warehouse storage system to have maximum capacity while maintaining condensed storage and a small footprint. Pushback is considered a “Last In, First Out” style of storage, or LIFO.
Having a pushback racking system installed at your facility will save overall floor space. Instead of having fork truck aisles between rows of rack, these rows of rack can be condensed together.
Push Back Racking can allow storage of product back to back from two deep rows all the way up to 6 deep rows. Bays can either be single pallet wide or double pallet wide. The rack will have an inclined rail/track system the will start in the first position and will gradually pitch to the back rack position. Within this runway, there will be between (1) and (5) carts that are nested in each other. These carts will have wheels that are enclosed within the track, not allowing the carts to ever escape the track. Each front beam of the system will have a bolt on front pallet stop in order to ensure product does not fall off the system. The top cart will also have a bolt on back pallet stop in order to ensure product does not fall off the system in the deepest pallet position.
Pallets are loaded from the front of the system. The first pallet entered into the system will sit on the very first top cart. When a second pallet is ready to enter into the system, the fork truck operator will carefully push the first stored pallet with the 2nd pallet, which will reveal the second cart beneath and the operator will release the second pallet on the second cart. To unload the system, the fork truck operator will enter its forks into the pallet on the edge, slowly back up, and take the pallet out of the system. The remaining pallets will then enter into the previous pallet’s position.
Thomas Conveyor & Equipment recently had a customer in the warehouse and distribution industry who needed multiple SKU tote storage. They had over 75 different SKU’s and needed to get product off the floor, which was their current storage operation.
Thomas Conveyor Application Engineers visited the customer to discuss their needs and to find out what space they had, taking into account an overhead sprinkler system. After taking measurements, TCE configured a custom push back rack system to maximize storage. TCE’s depictions showed both a plan view and an elevation view of their warehouse. Once the project was approved for purchase, we shipped a sample of the warehouse tote to our factory to ensure the tote style would work with the push back racking.
After product testing, it was determined that design modifications were needed. TCE engineers provided a recommendation to change the cart style from Wire Deck to a serrated pallet grip support deck style. This was based on a safety feature that prevented the steel rim at the bottom of totes to slip within the cart.
Please contact Thomas Conveyor and Equipment Company at 844-220-0086 for your pushback rack application along with any other racking and material handling needs.