Pallet Flow as Push Back Rack
One of the hottest trends in warehousing is using pallet flow as pushback pallet rack. The concept is to use the rails of pallet flow instead of pushback carts. Pallets are loaded in the front of the system and pushed back into the rack system. When it’s time to pick the pallets you pick from … Continue reading Pallet Flow as Push Back Rack
One of the hottest trends in warehousing is using pallet flow as pushback pallet rack. The concept is to use the rails of pallet flow instead of pushback carts. Pallets are loaded in the front of the system and pushed back into the rack system. When it’s time to pick the pallets you pick from the front of the system and the pallets behind flow to the front of the system. This is called First in / Last Out (FILO) storage.
I can tell you that pallet flow used as pushback can offer you very deep pallet flow. Much deeper than pushback rack which is limited to 5-6 pallets deep. With pallet flow used as push back rack you can get 6 to 14 pallet deep. It is only limited to the push force of your forklift. As you can imagine, a 14 pallet deep system x 2500 LBS pallet weight requires a forklift that is capable of pushing 35,000 LBS. That is not achievable with a stand up reach truck or a small sit down forklift, especially at higher levels where your mast is extended.
The pallet flow rack that is used as pushback rack is loaded and unloaded from the front of the rack system. It has a pitch just like pallet flow that allows pallets to flow to the front of the system. Typical pitch or grade is 3/8″ for heavy loads, 7/16″ for average loads and 1/2″ for light pallet loads.
There are two major selling points for using pallet flow rack as pushback rack:
- 1. Number one is stack height. Stack height has always been an issue with pushback racking. The carts and rails required in a pushback rack system eat up a lot of valuable vertical space. A 5 deep pushback rack system requires 4 carts and integral rails. That amounts to about 9″-12″ of waisted vertical space.
- What if you could eliminate the carts and rails – well pallet flow lets you do exactly that. Pallet flow doesn’t use carts and rails. It utilizes low profile flow rails that have metal skate wheels, poly wheels or rollers embedded in them. Can save enough vertical space by using pallet flow as pushback that you can very likely gain an additional pallet load high.
2. By using pallet flow as pushback rack you can go deeper than ever before. Push-back rack has always been limited to 5-6 pallets deep. Pallet flow rack allows you to go 7-14 pallets deep no problem. This allows you to greatly maximize storage density while experiencing the ultimate in handling efficiency.
