Your saw cutter is idle. Your operator is spending 20 minutes digging through stacks of bar stock, moving three bundles just to get to the one they need. This isn't just inefficient; it's a direct drain on your shop's profitability. Stop the material shuffle and start feeding your machines directly.
For any steel service center or metal fabrication shop, the space between your bulk storage and your processing machines (like saw cutters, plasma tables, or CNCs) is a critical bottleneck. The traditional methods of storing long materials—either floor stacking or using standard fixed cantilever racks—create a "hidden factory" of waste that actively undermines your productivity and safety.
With conventional storage, materials are buried. To access a specific bundle of steel tubing at the bottom or back, your crew is forced into a time-consuming process of "secondary handling." This involves moving multiple, heavy bundles out of the way first. This isn't value-added work; it's pure waste. Each cycle can take 15-25 minutes, during which your expensive machinery sits idle, waiting for material. This directly translates to lost production capacity and missed deadlines.
Standard cantilever racks demand wide aisles, typically 10-13 feet, to accommodate forklift movement and turning radius. This space is a "space liability"—it stores nothing and generates no revenue, yet you pay for every square foot. In a crowded facility where floor space is at a premium, this wasted area could be used for a new machine or a value-added processing station.
The solution isn't just a better rack; it's a fundamental shift in how you access and supply materials. A crank out cantilever rack, also known as a roll-out system, transforms static storage into a dynamic, high-density supply station right at the point of use.
The core innovation is that every storage level acts like a heavy-duty drawer. Using a simple hand crank, a single operator can smoothly extend a fully loaded level—weighing up to 5 tons—completely out into the open. The target material is now fully exposed, with no other bundles obstructing access. This simple, reliable mechanism eliminates secondary handling entirely.
Because the extended drawer presents the material in an open aisle, the primary handling tool shifts from a ground-based forklift to an overhead crane (EOT crane). Your crane can now access any bundle from directly above using slings or vacuum lifters. This is a game-changer. By eliminating the need for wide forklift aisles, you can place racks much closer together, instantly reclaiming up to 50% of the floor space previously dedicated to storage. This recovered space can be used to expand production, not just storage.
| Feature | Direct Benefit for Your Shop |
| 100% Fully Extendable Arms | Eliminates Secondary Handling: Access any specific bundle of bar stock or tubing in under 3 minutes. Feeds your saw cutters and CNC machines faster, dramatically increasing their uptime and overall throughput. |
| Overhead Crane Accessibility | Saves up to 50% Floor Space: Frees up valuable square footage by eliminating wide forklift aisles. This allows you to add another production machine without a costly facility expansion. |
| Independent, Selective Levels | Prevents Material Damage: No more dragging bundles over each other. Protects the surface finish of sensitive materials like stainless steel or aluminum profiles, reducing scrap costs. Enables true First-In, First-Out (FIFO) inventory management. |
| Heavy-Duty Steel Construction (H-Beam Base) | Ensures Operational Safety: Drastically reduces forklift traffic in the storage area, a major source of accidents. Eliminates the risk of unstable material stacks collapsing during retrieval. The entire system is anchored securely to the floor. |
Whether you're a high-volume steel distributor or a specialty fabrication shop, the system is tailored to your exact needs.
The hand-crank system is a marvel of mechanical advantage. A single person can effortlessly roll out a level loaded with thousands of pounds of steel. It's an ideal, cost-effective solution for storage bays accessed a few times per shift, providing a massive upgrade in safety and efficiency without the complexity of powered systems.
For high-throughput environments where material is being moved constantly, the electric-powered overhead crane accessible racking is the ultimate solution. With the push of a button on a handheld remote, the operator can select and extend the desired level. This maximizes speed and minimizes operator effort, making it perfect for feeding your most critical and demanding production lines.
These racks are not office furniture; they are heavy-duty industrial equipment designed for decades of service. The foundation is built from structural H-beam steel, providing a rock-solid base. All components are protected by a durable powder-coat finish that resists chipping, scratching, and corrosion. The modular, bolted construction allows for a streamlined installation process, often pre-assembled in large sections to minimize disruption to your operations. Each unit is securely anchored to your concrete floor, ensuring absolute stability and safety.
The system is modular. To accommodate longer materials, we simply add more vertical tower supports. For a 20-foot load, a three-tower configuration is common. This ensures the material is fully supported along its length, preventing sagging or bowing, and distributes the load evenly across the structure.
This is a critical consideration. Because the system creates very high-density storage, the point load on the floor can be substantial. We will provide detailed load calculations based on your specific rack configuration (number of levels, capacity per level, etc.). Your foundation must be a reinforced concrete slab of adequate thickness and strength (e.g., typically at least 6 inches and 3,000 PSI) to safely support the system and its anchor bolts.
Absolutely. We can equip the steel arms with protective UHMW (Ultra-High-Molecular-Weight) plastic liners or other non-marring surfaces. Combined with the use of nylon slings on your overhead crane, this creates a "no-touch" handling process that virtually eliminates the risk of scratches and surface damage, significantly reducing your scrap rate for high-value materials.
The ROI is typically very rapid, often under 18 months. The calculation is straightforward: (Time saved per material change) x (Number of changes per day) x (Your machine's hourly operating cost). If your $200/hour machine waits an extra 15 minutes for material 10 times a day, that's 150 minutes of lost production, costing you $500 daily. By reducing that wait time to 3 minutes, you reclaim over $400 in productive capacity every single day.
The system is highly adaptable. We offer optional, movable divider pins that can be placed along the length of the arms. This allows you to create smaller, dedicated compartments on a single level. You can store short remnants, smaller bundles, and full-length stock on the same drawer without them mixing, keeping your inventory perfectly organized and accessible.
