Organizing your storage area isn’t easy, especially with plenty of products and pallets constantly moving through the space. However, you can achieve good results by taking the time to organize your pallets to free up a lot of room. To efficiently store your pallets, here’s a guide that can help you with proper pallet organization in your storage space.

Focus on Pallet Safety

One of the most important things you should focus on when changing anything in your storage area is worker and product safety. This is still true when it comes to pallets, as they can pose a danger to the health of employees and possibly damage your products if something goes wrong. Here are some things you should do to increase safety when organizing pallets.

Start Strong

When it comes to stacking your pallets to store them, the first thing you need is a good foundation. You don’t want your pallets to fall later because of a flimsy foundation. Therefore, you should find a strong floor that’s flat and even to place your base pallets for pallet piles.

Don’t Stack Too High

A big mistake many people make is trying to stack their pallets too high, which can lead to various dangerous situations. You don’t want your pallet stacks to exceed 15 feet in height. Otherwise, you put your workers in greater danger and risk damaging your pallets if they do fall.

Stack the Same Pallets

There are many different types of pallets, and you may use several types for your business. However, it’s important that you don’t stack different pallet kinds, as this can make a very unstable pile. Only stack pallets of the same design, as these are made to go on top of each other safely. This is why people like to purchase their pallets in bulk from paper pallet suppliers to ensure they get stackable pallets.

Use Equipment

You should invest in the proper equipment for your storage area, both for worker efficiency and safety. Pulling pallets off and adding them to a stack is dangerous, but a good forklift or another machine can make it easier and safer. Proper equipment will also increase your warehouse capabilities, as you can create higher stacks, saving space and increasing efficiency.

Give Room for Workers

Many storage places make the mistake in their floor plans of maximizing their storage space at the cost of room for the workers. Your walkways and aisles next to the pallet stacks need to be wide enough to comfortably fit equipment and workers. Places that don’t have enough room see an increase in workplace hazards, equipment damage, and drops in productivity.

Organize by Usefulness

Now that we’ve got the basic safety tips down, we can delve into the finer details of pallet organization. It’s common to struggle finding the pallets you need in a storage area. However, proper planning and focusing on your pallets’ usefulness when setting up your floor plan can make this issue a thing of the past. With good organization, you’ll see a massive improvement in efficiency and productivity in your warehouse.

The best way to organize your pallets is by putting the most useful ones in the easiest places to reach. If you use different kinds of pallets, put the ones you need most often near the front of your storage space. This will speed up selection and retrieval time and help your workers perform these tasks more efficiently.

Get the Right Equipment

As we previously mentioned, a big part of a successful storage system is the equipment you use to make it work. You can get a lot more out of your space and enable your workers with the proper equipment. Below are some important pieces of equipment to consider for ideal pallet organization.

Pallet Jacks and Forklifts

Storing pallets isn’t easy, as you need to lift them multiple feet in the air to put them on or take them off the top of the stack. That’s why forklifts are a necessity for a well-run storage area, as they help with piling pallets safely. Likewise, a pallet jack is great for workers when they need to move individual pallets, as it makes it easy for one person to move them quickly.

Shelving and Racks

Good shelving and racks are necessary to store your pallets efficiently. While you can pile them on the ground, a good racking system will organize your storage and make efficient use of the room you have. This is especially important for pallets you get from paper pallet suppliers, as you don’t want the pallets to rot or get wet.

Use Warehouse Management Software

Storage spaces become a lot easier to manage if you can track where every pallet is in your system. Most big companies already catalog and itemize all their products, but doing so for pallets as well can help identify and resolve issues in warehouses.

One way to accomplish this tracking is to use warehouse management software. These systems are very efficient at managing and automating storage tracking and can help you quickly manage various parts of your business. Setting up this system can make pallet management a lot easier for you and your workers.

Focus on Pallet Management

Another tip for properly organizing your pallets is to think beyond the storage room itself. Pallet storage isn’t just about keeping the pallets and bringing them out to carry products when necessary. You also need to perform regular inspection and maintenance to ensure continued pallet quality. Otherwise, you could risk unusable pallets taking up valuable storage space.

Set Up a Room for Inspection

For one, pallets need regular inspection to ensure they aren’t breaking down and introducing safety concerns. Therefore, you should have an area near your pallet storage room to examine your pallets to ensure they’re in top shape.

Designate a Cleaning and Repair Area

Just like with the inspection area, a place to clean and repair your pallets may be necessary. Pallets can get dirty because of products or just natural buildup, which is why you should clean them regularly. Designating an area for this can help you keep your storage space clean and open for workers.

Recycle Old Pallets

Pallets wear out over time, and you don’t want malfunctioning pallets taking up space in your storage area. Once you identify worn-out pallets, contact a recycling program that will take the pallets from you and remake them into other usable pallets. You can often find these programs working with vendors, as it’s where paper pallet suppliers get a lot of their materials.

Organizing your pallets will greatly improve your efficiency and productivity as a business. That’s why it’s so important for every business to make these changes. You’ll get better results from your workers, and you’ll help protect them with these small changes to your pallet organization. To get the pallets that will best enable your organization, you can call First Alliance Logistics Management to help supply you!