We often get asked if pallet shuttle systems are competitive products to our push back systems, after all, both products allow you to achieve high-density storage within your warehouse. While the density characteristics of the two products may be similar, the operational needs of pallet systems are significantly different from push back systems.
Most of you know that 3D does not manufacture racking; we only manufacture pushback, pallet flow and carton flow components to fit into somebody else’s rack structure.
Two ongoing trends have been causing headaches for warehouses utilizing bulk storage or drive-in racking – the first is the move to lighter packaging, and the second relates to ever increasing product types (SKU) with smaller and smaller lot sizes.
With lighter packaging, products that were once able to be stacked 3 or 4 high may now only be able to be stacked two high, or not stacked at all. Facilities that have large sections of bulk storage are finding their height utilization severely restricted, and may end up storing half of what they used to store in a given area.
3D does not offer rubber bumpers as a standard option on our pushback systems. The reason for this is two-fold:
1. Rubber bumpers are sold as "noise reducers."
While these bumpers do in fact reduce noise, when properly loading and unloading pushback lanes, you cannot hear the carts over the sounds of even an electric forklift. Furthermore, if an operator unloads a lane improperly (ie. too fast) creating a “bang”, we think it’s a good idea if other staff/management nearby know, so that they can remind the driver that he is to control the loads when emptying the lane.
As one of the original founding partners of 3D, people often ask me how it all started. Like many things in life, it was a collection of circumstances that all came together at the right time.
Back in 1991, Todd Scott, Tony Evers and I all worked at Interroll Canada. Todd was Sales Manager for Dynamic Storage Products (Pushback, Pallet Flow, Carton Flow), Tony was VP of production and I wore the design/sales hat. At the time Interroll Canada was a franchise. The owner sold the franchise back to Interroll Corporate in Switzerland, Corporate sent in a new president, the recession of 1991-2 hit, and Todd and Tony found themselves unemployed.