Damage arrives dailynot in incidents

• The base of the upright at the aisle entry, where a truck squares up to the bay
• End-of-row frames on the routes to and from the dock
• The bottom beam level under the pick face, loaded and emptied all shift
• Column guards hit so often they no longer sit where they were anchored
• Drive-in tunnel legs, struck from inside the structure where nobody walks past
• Row spacers in the flue, pushed out of line by a pallet landed long
• Sheared or missing floor anchors at the end frames of a long run
• Safety bars knocked sideways by a pallet landed off-centre
• The frames beside the charging bay, where trucks queue and turn in a tight space

In most buildings the annual inspection is the event and repair is the exception. Here it is the other way round: the inspection sets a baseline once a year, and repair is a standing line on the maintenance calendar. CSA A344 also reads damage that keeps returning to one place — particularly at the base of a frame column — as the signal to change the guarding, the layout or the driving. That is usually the cheapest item on the report.

1. 1

   Your layout first

   We read the layout and elevation drawings before the visit and mark the runs that must come off load, plus any drive-in or drive-thru tunnels — those cannot be judged from outside. It becomes a schedule rather than a surprise on the day.

2. 2

   Zone by zone, on your shift pattern

   The walk is sequenced so one area is being examined while the rest of the building ships. Where a zone has a quiet hour — a shift change, a gap between waves — that is when we take it.

3. 3

   Red isolated before we leave

   Anything in immediate danger is unloaded, marked and isolated the same day, and stays out of service until it has been repaired and re-approved. Nothing waits for the report to be typed up.

4. 4

   Repairs booked into the gaps

   Every item that can stay in service carries a deadline, set on the day by the engineer supervising the inspection. The work then lands in a window you chose rather than the one an audit chooses for you.

Single-deep — the reference

Every pallet reachable from the aisle, the lowest density, the easiest to inspect and the easiest to repair. Nothing is buried, so a damaged frame can be emptied in minutes rather than in a shift — which is why fast-moving sites keep coming back to it.

Double-deep — density for a slower half

Two pallets per position and a reach truck to serve them. Access drops to the front pallet, so it suits lines carrying more than one pallet of the same item — and it lengthens the reach a driver makes past your uprights each time.

Push-back — one working face

High density loaded and picked from the same aisle, which makes it last-in, first-out. That is a constraint on rotation rather than a detail, and it is worth checking against how the stock actually turns before the steel is ordered.

Drive-in — the densest, and the most exposed

The truck drives inside the structure, so columns get hit where nobody walks past them. Guards on those columns, anchored to the floor, are part of the design here rather than an accessory — and the tunnels have to be partly emptied before anyone can tell you what state they are in.

Pallet flow — rotation without the aisle count

Loaded at one end and picked at the other, so the oldest pallet is always the one at the face. It buys density and first in, first out rotation together, which is the combination a dated or lot-tracked line needs.