In instances where full pallet racking systems collapse, the damage can be hundreds of thousands of pounds to stock, equipment and employee health. On top of that, business productivity will grind to a halt in the time it takes to repair the damage and replenish the stock.

In the majority of cases, pallet racking collapse is entirely preventable and most of the time happen as a result of either bad practice, poor quality racking or improper safety training of staff. Some measures can be put in place to prevent racking collapse and the risks associated with them.

Understanding Risk

As well as an immediate risk towards life, racking collapses show considerable risk towards business and operations.

Severe injuries to work personnel are the worst-case scenario to collapse incidents, but there is the very real risk of fatalities from the incident as well. This is the ultimate cost to a business not just in a financial settlement negligence case, but the reputation of the business will forever be tarnished or completely dead in the water.

On top of this is the fines imposed by regulatory bodies for failure to keep work equipment in a safe and well-maintained working order. These fines can be extremely high and can even lead to prosecution.

Destruction of stock, company downtime and overall loss of business contracts all follow suit as extremely costly to your business – which you may struggle to recover from in business and financially moving forward.

Racking Failures

As well as the increased risk of industrial storage racks failing on their own, damaged or poorly maintained racking can be caused by simple forklift collisions or overloading of the units above.

The best way to prevent these is to carry out regular visual inspections of the racking for any sign of damage or overloading and have every employee who has an incident report it immediately. You can even employ an approved racking inspector to provide a full report on damages. Whenever damage is reported, it is advisable to avoid this racing until it has been fully repaired.

As the most common cause of pallet racking collapse, the risk of forklift collision can be greatly reduced by designing systems with adequate space between racks and the installation of column guards, upright protectors and racking barriers.

Up to date training with all workers including forklift drivers should be undergone regularly as well as updating safety practices whenever anything new is implemented in the warehouse.

If you are responsible for pallet racking systems within your warehouse, you need to ensure that the system is well maintained, inspected and trained around to make sure the risk of pallet collapse is minimal.

Contact the team at Monarch Shelving today for all industrial storage racks and warehouse storage equipment enquiries.