With real estate prices high and large warehouse spaces limited, many businesses find themselves outgrowing their storage needs. This problem is becoming more common in industries from museums and archives to law enforcement. Compact shelving is the modern solution for high-volume storage needs paired with limited space options. 

Compact shelving goes by many names, including high density storage and mobile storage, but the goal is always the same: to minimize the footprint of the storage system, saving space while maintaining clear organization of the collection and easy access to the items it contains. 

Compact shelving systems achieve this goal through their design. A compact shelving system is a series of cabinets or racks attached to wheeled carriages. These carriages move along tracks in the floor, allowing you to easily create or eliminate aisle space by moving the units back and forth. While ordinary storage systems require a fixed aisle for every row of shelving, taking up a lot of floor space, compact shelving allows you to create an aisle each time you need it and keeps the units stacked closely together when you don’t. 

There are many solutions available. Read on to learn about the options that are best for you.

Standard Mobile Shelving

Standard mobile shelving is extremely versatile and therefore very widely used. It is adaptable to meet the needs of most stored items and storage spaces, and it can be customized with various controls and safety options to increase performance and security. You might find standard mobile shelving in offices that require significant document storage, or in libraries and academic buildings with extensive book collections.

Heavy-Duty Mobile Shelving

Standard compact shelving can hold a lot, but it isn’t suited for everything. For storing large or heavy items, you might need heavy-duty mobile shelving. Heavy duty compact shelving can hold loads from 7,000 to 30,000 lbs, which means you may want to pair it with a power or assisted operation system as described below. You’ll find heavy-duty mobile shelving used often in warehouses and cold storage facilities where big, bulky items are common.

Low-Profile Mobile Shelving

Low-profile mobile shelving is the best choice for very limited spaces or for storage solutions that need to be able to adapt to upcoming changes. These lighter, more mobile units are easy to reconfigure and easy to transfer. You will find them most often in growing businesses and compact spaces. 

Modes of operation

The mode of operation puts the “mobile” in compact shelving — these are the systems that allow you to move the storage unit along the floor track. 

Manual operation is easy and cost-effective. It relies on a straight handle attached to the storage unit so the operator can easily grasp and pull the unit along the floor track.

Mechanical-assist operation is less physically demanding, but it is still person-powered. In a mechanical-assist setup, a three spoke rotating handle attaches to a pulley mechanism to move the storage units along the track. All the operator has to do is rotate the handle to move the units to the desired position.

Powered operation is even easier. The shelves move at the push of a button, saving both manual labor and time because the operator can enter the storage configuration as soon as the shelves begin to move. 

No matter what your storage needs, a compact shelving system can save space and time while making your workspace safer and more productive. Contact us today for an expert consultation.