Industrial protections
Rack protection
A pallet racking system is a structure holding several tonnes a bay, and it is hit for a living. Rack protection puts a replaceable component between the forklift and the frame: corner protectors, column guards, end of aisle protectors and barriers, specified for the aisles they have to work in.
Why rack protection matters
Racking faces constant contact from forklifts and pallet trucks, and without protection even a minor collision starts to work against the structure: a dent becomes a distortion, the distortion reduces the load capacity, and the load does not get any lighter.
So the point is not cosmetic. It is keeping the load-bearing capacity the racking was designed with, keeping people safe under it, and avoiding the interruption that follows when a bay has to be emptied and a frame replaced.
What unprotected racking risks
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Structural failure
Repeated impacts weaken an upright over time. What begins as a small dent progresses to a distorted frame with less capacity than the load it carries, which is the sequence behind most collapses.
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Damage nobody sees
Not all of it is visible. Hairline cracks, slightly bent uprights and loosened connections can pass a quick look and still be the reason a frame fails later, which is why inspection and protection belong together.
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A compliance problem
Safety regulations require racking to be kept in safe working condition. Damaged racking can attract enforcement, and an improvement or prohibition notice stops the operation until the repair is done.
The four solutions, and where each belongs
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Corner protectors
They cover the corners of a run, where a forklift is most likely to make contact, and absorb the energy before it reaches the frame. The cheapest intervention on this list and usually the first one.
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Column guards
A guard around the upright itself, which deflects the impact away from the component that carries the load. Heavy duty versions take repeated collisions without passing the force into the frame.
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End of aisle protectors
The end of an aisle is where trucks turn, which is where they hit things. These are both a physical barrier and a visual one, in the position that gets struck most often.
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Rack protection barriers
A barrier that keeps the traffic route away from the racking altogether. Where the aisle is narrow or the fleet is mixed, this is what stops the truck from getting close enough to matter.
Choosing what a given warehouse needs
Good rack protection meets a recognised standard and has been tested for impact rather than described as strong. Ask for the certification and the conditions it was tested under, from us as much as from anyone else.
After that it is a question of your own risk: a narrow aisle with a busy mixed fleet and several operators needs more protection than a slow storage bay that sees one truck a day, and the money is better spent where the marks already are.
Installation should not require modifying the racking. A protection system that has to be unbolted every time the bay is inspected is one that will not be there in a year.
Rack protection across Europe
Rejuva specifies and installs rack protection for the configuration and the traffic a building actually has, and specifies from several makers rather than being tied to one, which is what allows the recommendation to follow the aisle instead of the catalogue.
Where the racking has already been struck, the inspection and the repair are the other half of the job, and they usually reveal where the protection should have been in the first place.
Protection for every point that gets hit
Each of these covers one kind of impact, and most sites need three or four of them rather than all six. Which ones follows from where the damage is already showing.
Two places worth walking through first
A warehouse and a car park fail in different ways, so it is worth reading the whole of one before choosing individual products.
Have a project in mind?
Describe what needs to happen in the building and we will come back with a proposed approach, the specialist who would carry it out and a budget you can work with.