A typical bank of mobile office shelving units offer close to 50% reduction of floor space or a 50% to 100% increase in storage space compared to traditional filing cabinets. The ability to concertina individual units until touching means space is only required between units when they are being accessed by users. Applications with a greater number of simultaneous users may require more access spaces (aisles), thus not approaching this 50% target so closely.
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Mobile Aisle System
Mobile Aisle Shelving
Mobile shelving or roller racking systems are specialised storage units designed to offer increased capacity for a given footprint over traditional storage units.
By eliminating the need for an aisle between every shelving unit, more floor space can be utilised for storage. Each unit is mounted on a level trackway (to eliminate gradients in the supporting floor), making it possible to move heavy units with minimal effort. Mobile shelving can be moved manually or by the use of electrical motors.
Manual mobile shelving
Mobile storage systems (mobile aisle shelving or roller racking) are usually constructed with a rotary handle on the exterior accessible face. When rotated, the handle operates the mechanism which winds the single, connected, filing unit either left or right, depending on a clockwise or counter-clockwise rotation of the handle. In an office, for example, several stacks of moveable filling cabinets may be accommodated in a limited space.
Powered mobile shelving
Powered shelving is electrically powered. Units normally have a small AC or DC motor hidden in the base that automatically moves the units when a single button is pressed. High-end versions connect into archiving databases, and using RFID allow the easy retrieval of archived items with auto-open and close functions.
Applications
Mobile aisle shelving is typically used for academic or commercial applications where a significant volume of physical archive material, filing or books are to be stored. These include medical or government records, file-intensive offices such as the legal or accountancy professions, and public and academic libraries and similar archives.
Another common use is in retail stockrooms to maximise the stock capacity, or to reduce the back of house storage space required so that a greater proportion of the overall shop space can be used for customer retail purposes.
Capacity, siting and speed advantages
Frequently Asked Questions
Mobile aisle shelving (also called roller racking or mobile storage) consists of storage units mounted on level trackways that can be moved left or right. By eliminating fixed aisles between every shelving unit, more floor space can be utilized for storage. Units can be moved manually or electrically.
A typical bank of mobile shelving units offers close to 50% reduction of floor space required, or a 50% to 100% increase in storage capacity compared to traditional filing cabinets and static shelving. The ability to close units together means space is only needed between units when being accessed.
Manual mobile shelving uses a rotary handle on the exterior face that, when rotated, moves the connected shelving unit left or right. Powered mobile shelving uses small AC or DC motors in the base that automatically move units when a button is pressed. High-end versions can connect to databases and use RFID for automated retrieval.
Mobile aisle shelving is typically used for storing physical archive materials, filing, and books. Common applications include medical records, government records, legal and accounting firms, academic and public libraries, archives, and retail stockrooms where maximizing storage capacity is important.
Yes, pallet racking can be configured as mobile aisle systems (sometimes called powered mobile racking) to significantly increase pallet storage capacity in the same footprint. This is an excellent high-density storage option when floor space is at a premium.
Yes. Applications with a greater number of simultaneous users may require more access spaces (aisles), which affects the space savings calculation. However, mobile systems still provide significant capacity increases compared to traditional static storage even in multi-user environments.