Owning or managing any type of industrial company means having a sufficient inventory of whatever you need to make your business run. That inventory takes up space, however, and every day there are businesses that realize they need to make some hard decisions with regards to how they divide their space: what do they need for their employees to work, and what do they need to store the physical ingredients for their success?
Before investing in off-site storage or, in the most severe scenario, an entirely new place of business (with the associated costs of moving or managing a second location), it behooves a company to investigate better ways of managing their space. Although it can be easy to think any better option is only a stopgap measure for a growing business, the truth is, solutions like industrial storage lockers are often a long-term as well as a short-term answer, simply because of their space and organizational efficiency.
1. Minimum space usage. As mentioned, space quickly becomes a premium concern for numerous companies. Safety gear might go in a large closet, and that closet may take up far more square footage than the amount of gear being stored needs. Industrial shelving is frequently not filled bottom to top; alternatively, the shelves may be placed closer together so each shelf can technically be used the bottom to top, but the additional shelves also steal potential space. Large quantities of shelf space must also be purchased at one time, creating more upfront cost and less scalability.
Industrial storage lockers, on the other hand, can be tucked neatly against walls and measured to meet the company’s current and near-future needs. The increased safety of lockers versus more open methods of maintaining inventory and equipment also allows them to be better filled, improving their space efficiency further.
2. Maximum organization. Industrial storage lockers are designed for almost anything a business might want to put inside them. Every locker can be stacked bottom to top with boxes of parts to be assembled, spare parts for the company’s machinery, even additional machines that need to be kept for a worst-case breakdown. Lockers can easily be tagged with numbers or any other desired identification, allowing employees to easily find whatever is needed at any given moment.
In addition, these lockers are frequently used to keep safety gear. Hooks are placed on the sides to hang vests, helmets, and gloves with minimal space between each, and any other requisite equipment can be kept in shelves or boxes on the locker’s bottom.
Thinner variants can be used for individuals or small groups, while larger, walk-in lockers can service the entire company while taking up only a corner of the warehouse.
3. Safety for any stored goods. The problem with more common storage solutions like industrial shelving is that the entire space from one shelf up to the next is often not utilized. Even when these shelves are used efficiently and not just for setting down loose parts, most boxes and containers are not sturdy enough to trust in a stack that rises too high, as they will begin to warp and tilt over time. And if you do have sufficiently sturdy containers, there still remains a greater risk of calamity: something is pulled too hard, catches on the next stack, and leads to a chain reaction of crashing boxes. The cleanup time alone is a quantifiable productivity loss, not to mention damaged parts and potential injury.
With industrial storage lockers, the risk of this is mitigated to almost zero. Smaller lockers mean boxes can be packed in tightly, using the entire space without the risk of spontaneous collapse from something as easy to miss as weight shifting in the top box on the stack. In addition, because each locker is a self-contained space, if there were any type of container failure or chain-reaction crash, it would be limited to that locker.
And all of this is on top of the simple improved safety inherent in locking away as many items as possible.
If you’re in charge of an industrial business and think industrial storage lockers might be right for your inventory management needs, contact us for more details on how we can set up this solution for you.