Pallet flow systems are used for storage of larger quantity of pallets with the same goods articles. There are two possibilities with regards to material flow. LIFO (Last In – First Out) and FIFO (First in – First out).
Pallet flow racks belong to so called “block storage” family. It saves warehouse floor area and makes pallet retrieval process faster.
Princip for FIFO is very simple. Pallets are picked from the channel in the sequence they are stored into the channel. Pallet is put on in-feed place. Pallet goes through channel on rollers, speed is controlled by dynamic brakes. When the pallet comes to the picking side, a separator is activated by a lever mechanism. Separator creates distance between the first and the second pallet so, retrieval of the first pallet is safe because no forces from other pallets are pushing the first pallet out of the channel.
When the first pallet from the picking side is removed, the separator is released and second pallet moves on to the end stop and activates the separator again.
Princip for LIFO is also very simple. The last pallet stored into the channel is picked first.
A pallet is put onto in-feed place. Other pallets push the formerly stored pallets further deeper into the channel by forklift. There are no dynamic brakes and no separators. Channel depth is limited by performance of a forklift used for storage. Either roller tracks or sliding frames are used for LIFO.
It all look pretty simple. Nevertheless, there are points one has to take into consideration when designing this racking system. Therefore we are here to assist.
