When you order industrial pallet racks after creating the perfect warehouse strategy plan, there’s something you don’t want to forget: wire decking. In general, most pallet racks are made considerably better with the simple addition of these wire mesh panels.
Even if you don’t need wire decking on every single pallet rack you’re using, it’s important to have enough of them around so that you can drop them in as necessary. And we’re not exaggerating when we say “drop them in”…that’s all you have to do in order to make your racking system much more flexible. So, what makes this simple — and inexpensive — option such a necessity in most warehouses? Let’s take a look.
Improve Your Flexibility
If you have pallet racks without any wire mesh, you’re missing out on the option to store items that don’t naturally fit. For instance, you can store items on your industrial shelves without even having to have a pallet at all. You can now put on boxes, cartons, barrels, oversized/unboxed components, and so much more. It’s also a great place to store odd-shaped pallets that don’t conform to your particular type of pallet rack.
You can even turn parts of your warehouse into non-inventory space, like if you put all of the cleaning equipment on a wire mesh-covered pallet rack section. Or use it to hold rolls of cellophane wrapping, tape guns, or scanning equipment chargers.
Wire Decking Improves Visibility
Yes, the warehouse of the future is coming, filled with RFID chips and barcodes that only drones will be able to read. Line of sight won’t be nearly as important when the workers themselves don’t have eyes!
But for most warehouses, that future isn’t here yet. In most cases, being able to see inventory is one of the easiest ways for warehouse workers to find what they’re looking for. If you have a solid flooring for each of your pallet racks, they’re not going to be able to tell what’s on the higher shelves. Is it an entire pallet? Or just an empty barrel? Wire decking can give employees a quick idea of what’s where.
Wire decking doesn’t just help with visibility from below, but also visibility from above. Warehouse wire decking lets light through, which means that the warehouse floor is going to be better illuminated. Not only can this reduce the amount of lighting you need, but it can also illuminate the spaces in which employees are working and could help prevent accidents.
Wire Decking Improves Cleanliness
How easy is it to clean the tops of pallet racks if they have a solid, impermeable floor? Not very. Dust and debris collects up there year after year, and every time the pallet on it is disturbed, dust is going to go flying everywhere. If someone does get up there to clean them, it can introduce a safety risk.
Wire decking reduces the need for cleaning. Because it’s made from mesh instead of solid panels, the dust ends up falling through level after level. Yes, there’s the same amount of dust as there’s always been, but now it’s on the warehouse floor where it can be easily and safely cleaned up.
Improve Safety
It might sound strange that these reasonably priced wire mesh panels can increase warehouse safety, so let us explain.
Protect Your Employees
The problem with warehouses is that their increased height means items can fall from higher than in most places. And as items fall from higher up, they gain more momentum and become a greater danger to employees.
Wire mesh can prevent that from happening. Instead of something from a pallet dropping a full 30-feet, wire mesh means that it will probably only drop to the next pallet down where it won’t harm anyone working in the warehouse. From a moral standpoint, keeping your employees safe is the right thing to do. From a practical standpoint, it keeps your workers comp claims down.
Protect Your Inventory
This one is pretty simple: falling a shorter distance is better than falling a greater distance for most products. Certainly there are items that don’t care how far they drop, and there is some inventory that will be destroyed whether it falls from the top of the warehouse or if it simply falls a few feet. But in many instances, wire mesh will catch your inventory and prevent it from getting damaged.
Make Your Sprinkler System More Efficient
If a fire starts at the bottom pallet rack of a warehouse, solid decking is going to prevent the water from a sprinkler system from effectively getting down to it. The fire can burn much longer and do much more damage if all of the water is hitting the solid deck and ending up on the warehouse floor.
Now consider warehouse wire decking for pallet racks. The water from a sprinkler system can pass through the top pallet racks (and the next two as well) in order to get to the fire in a more direct manner.
Be Sure To Include Wire Mesh With Your Pallet Rack Order
Whether you’ll use them on absolutely every pallet rack or you just need some around every so often, it’s important that you keep wire decking somewhere in your warehouse. It just makes your space more versatile and efficient, and that’s something we can all get behind. Contact us today to learn more about it!
