Vertical Warehouse to Maximize Storage Capacity

A vertical warehouse solution is one of the most efficient way of storage. In traditional ways of storage, it operates in horizontal which products are laid out in rows. It wastes plenty of space because there are lots of spaces upon shelves that aren’t utilized. Warehouses are normally 32 feet tall and even more.

What is vertical warehouse

In short, vertical warehouse is a new system that utilize the spare space in vertical direction to maximum the utilization of warehouses. But it’s not only about saving spaces. The new system requires multiple machines and software to manage the storage situation better in order to achieve more efficiency.

The most important part of vertical warehouse is the motor drive system. The system consists of steel structures to load and unload materials and products, automated guided vehicle (AGV) that can move vertically and a data collection system that is vertical labels and scanners. Vertical labels are a series of colored bar codes that contains all sorts of information. The key factor of vertical labels is the generation of all information of one aisle into one set of labels. Scanners can scan only one code to determine whether it’s the right aisle or not.

Advantages of vertical warehouse

• Improving efficiency

A vertical warehouse does more than just utilizing spare spaces by stacking products vertically. It actually involves multiple complicated machine and related management system to improve efficiency.

A vertical warehouse adopts the principle of “products to staff”. It is a time consuming process which the products are transported to staff. Ordinarily, products need to be carried by staff to different sections of the warehouse. However, in the new system, the products are directly transformed to the picking area by machine. The machine is managed by the new system to automatically generate the shortest path without crashing to each other. By carefully calculating, the time is consumed to the maximum level.

• Eliminating safety concerns

When it comes to eliminating safety concerns of businesses, it has double meanings. The former one is to reduce the hidden hazard of hurting staffs. Carrying products manually, esp. heavy ones, are dangerous to staffs. By adopting machines to perform the process can reduce the hazard to minimum. Another aspect of safety concerns is that the safety of data. In the new system, since it depends heavily on machine and cloud database, permissions can be authorized to certain staffs. Only staffs with authorization can check the important data.

Machines in vertical storage

What are the machines that you need to require if you want to try out the vertical storage in your own warehouse?

• Steel structures

Steel structures are necessary part as the whole foundation of the system. Vertical steel structures need to satisfy the requirements that motorized shuttle can smoothly work on that. The steel structure needs to consider the load-bearing volume for other machines and products being on it.

• Automated guided vehicle(AGV)

AGV is a machine that can move around carrying products and materials. The AGV can be different in shapes and sizes in order to work with different types of products. Another factor is the weight and shape of the products. AGV is used to carrying products in different weight and whether the products are carried in with trays or not.

• Industrial scanners

Industrial scanners are essential to warehouses, whether it’s vertical or not. Yet the vertical warehouses depends more on scanners due to the digital management system. It also has another thriving advantages of being high efficiency with smoother and faster work flow. Industrial scanners are able to scan bar codes in scratches and stains. It can scan a bunch of bar codes at the same time, being extremely devoted and a part that can’t be missed into the whole system.

Conclusion

In the current conditions, shortage and low utilization of spare spaces are common issues troubling businesses. A vertical warehouse is one of the best solutions for that. With a few changes, the warehouse is ready to be more digitized and efficient.