Material Handling Equipment - Industrial and Systems Engineering

MATERIAL HANDLING EQUIPMENTStorage racks are used when support and/or material accessibility is required2. Selective pallet rackPallets are supported between load-supporting beams. Most popular type of storage rack. Specialattachments and decking can be used to make the racks capable of supporting other types ofunit loads besides pallets (e.g., coils, drums, skids)Load-on-beam racks are used to provide clearance for straddles; load-on-floor racks can be usedwhen it is not necessary to use straddles.2(a) Single-deep rackSingle position (slot) per positionAdv: Provides complete and fast accessibility to allloads with no honeycomb lossDisadv: Can result in low cube utilization because ofaisle space requirements, which can be influencedby the lift truck used (e.g., a turret truck wouldincrease and a standard counterbalanced woulddecrease utilization)2(b) Double-deep rackTwo pallets stored per positionAdv: Provides greater cubeutilization than single-deepracks because more loads can beaccessed from the same side ofthe rackDisadv: In order to access rearload in rack, an extendedreaching mechanism is requiredon the lift truck[NAVSUP Pub 529]Typically used when the inventory level for an item is at least five or when loads are stored andpicked in multiples of two pallets 1656