Pallet Rack

Pallet racking is a structural storage system of upright steel frames and horizontal beams, built to hold loaded pallets several tiers high so that a warehouse can stack goods vertically instead of spreading them across the floor, with a forklift or reach truck placing and retrieving each pallet through the open face of the rack. The most common configuration, selective racking, gives a forklift direct access to every pallet position at any time, which suits operations that need to reach many different items quickly; denser configurations such as drive-in racking sacrifice that direct access, letting a truck drive into the rack itself, in exchange for packing far more pallets into the same footprint. Pallet racking spread through manufacturing and distribution facilities after the Second World War alongside the standardized wooden pallet itself, since a stack of loose pallets on a warehouse floor cannot be built more than a few units high without crushing the bottom layer, while a steel rack bears that weight instead. Racks are frequently fitted with wire mesh or netting between levels to stop a stored item from falling into the aisle below, protecting workers on foot.