Takes A Licking, Keeps On Ticking

Grocery Truss is highly resistant to fork lift abuse and impact.

March 14, 2011

Status Report: Warehousing

Designed to give maximum protection without intruding into the aisle, this rack design uses double columns front and back with C channel construction in all lower X brace panel sections. A welded side panel floor plate completes this space efficient design, giving full length protection and hidden anchors for extra stability.

STATUS REPORT: Warehousing

RACKING UPDATE

Warehouses are no place for the faint-hearted. They are bustling hubs of high-velocity activities where truck lift accidents can cause some serious damage to products, pallets, racking systems and truck equipment. Just ask John Baran, senior design engineer for Konstant USA in Rolling Meadows, IL, who worked with the inventor of the Konstant Grocery Truss: Tony Konstant.

The Grocery Truss was developed in the mid-1980s after Konstant continually heard from people in the food industry who were concerned about the damage they were experiencing in their warehouses.

“First of all, it takes a salesman who really understands the industry and who asks a lot of questions about the kinds of damage,” says Baran. “Then you need to have an engineer who is as gifted and who is as excellent a designer as Tony Konstant was to be able to develop such a product. We were very receptive to helping our customers find a solution to the problems they were having. Tony developed many, many firsts in the industry and he was truly a unique genius when it comes to racking.”

The Grocery Truss is a high-impact-resistant truss whose design evolved over a number of years to help customers eliminate damage at the end of warehouse racking rows and in cross aisles, explains Baran.

“These are high-traffic areas with a lot of throughput. In many companies, workers are paid at a piecework rate, so the more workers put through, the more they get paid. So there I a lot of quick movements with lift trucks involved. And the areas of contention are always at the end of the aisle or at the cross aisles,” he says. “This is particularly so in grocery warehouses, where workers are picking using double-pallet jacks that have to swing around. The thing is they usually catch an upright or a column.”

So Konstant set about developing a product that would be highly resistant to that kind of abuse and that would bring some value to a racking installation, Baran says. “Using the Grocery Truss is a good alternative to having to build and install a ballard, which is costly and requires a lot of work. This also creates a situation of protrusion into the aisle. Our Grocery Truss is an option that warehouses can exercise.”

Baran notes that one of the first customers to use the Grocery Truss was Supervalu Inc., where the product proved its functionality and durability in the retailer’s numerous huge warehouses.

“Food distribution centers and refrigerated sites are some of the most demanding warehouse environments,” notes Baran. “Our Konstant Grocery Truss is designed for the heaviest and most frequent impact that can be typical in those applications. The rack design uses double columns front and back with C-channel construction in two lower X-brace panel sections. There is a half-inch-thick base angle to provide full-depth protection and four one-inch-by-six-inch anchors to resist truck impact and add extra stability to the system.”

Konstant develops customized solutions for its customers and the trusses can be anywhere from 42-inches deep to 84-inches deep, depending on the application. A truss can be built to a height of 40 feet, depending on the number of levels of storage.

The truss design is extremely sturdy, with a horizontal member at every 24 inches, providing exceptional stability. “Normally, designs on other systems might place horizontal members at 42-inch or 48-inch intervals,” Baran explains. “But at Konstant, we group the horizontal members tightly together to provide strength and stability to the entire assembly.”

“The main feature of the Grocery Truss is its resistance to abuse and impact,” Baran says. “The other benefit to warehouses is the fact that using these trusses does not take up any additional space as would installing a ballard, for example.”

Racking It Up

A well designed and organized warehouse environment allows for safe storage of merchandise and the navigational efficiency for staff to quickly locate called-for merchandise, retrieve it and deliver it to the point of shipping or pick-up.

With square footage at a cost premium, storing “up” is significantly less expensive that storing “out” requiring the ability to safely store and retrieve even large, heavy-weight items at heights. The traditional pallet rack system remains the industry standard for optimizing warehouse space and operations, accommodating of most any type of merchandise.

Buying a pallet racking system can massively increase the storage capacity of any warehouse. Before buying any racking system, however, it’s important to understand what types of systems are available and how to evaluate which is best for your storage requirements.

A racking system that is right for one company may not work for another. The type of rack you choose has to complement your materials handling policies in several ways. Here are some of aspects of your stock management system to consider:

Distribution order: Are you FIFO (first-in-first-out) or LIFO (last-in-first-out)? FIFO is the most commonly used;
Loading and unloading: What kinds of lift trucks does your new system need to accommodate? Do you pick partial loads or only full pallets? Do you need separate holding and storing areas?
Load restrictions: How much do your pallets weigh, and—specifically—what’s the upper limited and what’s the average? How large is a typical pallet load? Do you need to store any odd shape loads? How many pallets do you need to store? How many are of identical products? Do you need access to all products?

The answers to these questions will help determine what type of pallet racking system you should choose. The basic tradeoff is density vs. access: high-density storage systems can store far greater number of pallets in a given space, but some (or most) pallets are not immediately accessible. Low density systems can hold less pallets because they dedicate more space to aisles, but they allow you to reach any one pallet at any time.

Pallet racking systems are built from vertical frames that divide the rack into separate areas and horizontal beams that support your pallets. A single storage area is referred to as a bay. You can choose decking to provide a “floor” in each bay, although for ventilation and ease of maintenance wire mesh deck is usually preferred, as opposed to a solid deck.

Each rack manufacturer has their own unique construction method, but there are two main options: beams are bolted directly to the frames for the greatest strength or attached using teardrop/coffin slot/key hole clip-in construction for the most flexibility.

Warehouse pallet racking can be purchased used to save considerable money when setting up a new warehouse, expanding a warehouse or replacing old equipment. Companies are constantly going out of business, consolidating warehouses or upgrading their equipment, and often sell their used warehouse equipment at tremendously reduced prices. Streamlining a warehouse with an efficient, used pallet rack system is an affordable option to improving the bottom line.