Metal stillages are a super useful piece of kit, used in industrial, manufacturing and warehouse environments all over the country. Here is our guide to what they are and why you should get some for your site.
What is a metal stillage?
Essentially, these are raised surfaces, used for storage. Constructed from metal, common variants include the standard flat surface with posts, ones with mesh walls, ones with panel walls and options with different height or numbers of walls.
What are they used for?
In industrial workplaces – those where your personnel are using forklift trucks, pallet trucks, dollies and the like – heavy-duty metal stillages provide a strong, durable and equally heavy-duty storage system. Place them around the site, and your staff will have access to boxes, components and other needed items when they need them without having to go back to a centralised depot.
Why should you use them?
They provide a great amount of storage capacity with only a modest footprint – most metal stillages are stackable, for example. The metal construction allows for huge weight capacities, too – many high-quality models can hold anywhere between 500kg and 1000kg, more than enough for the majority of use cases. Lastly, due to the fact that the base of the stillage is raised, they can be used in conjunction with pallet trucks, making it super easy to move them about your site for better positioning, restocking or cleaning.
What are the options?
For storing small components, you should use a panel-walled model – anything else will allow the components to fall from the stillage and become either damaged or lost, potentially causing a slip and trip hazard.
Larger components can be better stored in a mesh-walled stillage – the walls will retain the stored items as required, and your personnel will be able to easily see inside at a glance.
Boxes, pallets and other really large items will need an open-faced stillage, for ease of loading and unloading.
Other variations to consider include those with detachable sides or drop sides – great for a more versatile approach that gives you the benefits of seeing and reaching inside easily combined with the better load retention.
Things to look out for
You should make sure that your stillage is made from a decent mild steel, to ensure that it has the required strength and resilience. Further, good quality models will be galvanised for longevity and rust-proofing, and powder coated to provide a more eye-catching storage solution (particularly important if they are to be moved about as people will need to see and identify them easily).
If you will be stacking your stillages, then consider that you will not be able to access the contents of lower units if they do not have a removable door or drop panel – so this is a must. Finally, some manufacturers can provide you with stillages mounted on castors, although these are a rarity and often require custom making. Most industrial sites benefit more from the static model as they provide more stability and safety – all of them are easy enough to move with a pallet truck, after all.
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