Waarom truck lichaam makers zijn overgestapt op de lancering van metalen plaat rekken?

Manufacturing trailers and custom truck bodies is a logistical balancing act. You are juggling heavy 20-foot steel chassis beams alongside delicate, mirror-finish aluminum sidewalls. Storing these disparate materials in floor piles results in a high scrap rate due to dents and scratches. This article explains how specialized racking systems streamline the handling of oversized and sensitive materials in the transport industry. Praten met experts

Taming the “Long Stock” Beast

The backbone of any trailer is the steel tubing and channel forming the chassis. These components often exceed 6 meters (20 feet) in length. Storing them in traditional pigeon-hole racks or cantilever shelves makes retrieval dangerous and slow, often requiring two people to drag a heavy beam out manually.

The specialized roll out sheet metal racks (configured for long goods) allow these heavy bundles to be cranked out effortlessly. A single operator can extend the drawer and use an overhead crane to lift the exact beam needed for the welding jig. This eliminates the “drag and drop” injuries common in chassis fabrication.

Zero Dents on Aluminum Sidewalls

For refrigerated trucks and livestock trailers, the aluminum skin is the visible face of the product. These sheets are soft, expensive, and unforgiving. When stacked on the floor, the weight of the stack can imprint debris into the bottom sheets, and forklift forks often dent the edges during handling.

Drawer storage treats these aluminum sheets like precious cargo. By supporting the sheet fully and allowing vertical picking with a vacuum lifter, you remove all metal-to-metal friction. The racks can even be lined with polymer strips to ensure that your pristine aluminum stays that way until it is riveted onto the frame.

Rapid Kitting for Custom Builds

Unlike automotive assembly lines, truck body manufacturing is often high-mix, low-volume. One day you are building a grain hauler; the next, a utility service body. This requires rapid access to a wide variety of sheet gauges and sizes.

A multi-level racking system acts as a “vending machine” for your raw materials. You can store your 3mm tread plate, 5mm structural steel, and 2mm aluminum skin in the same compact tower. This organization allows the fabrication team to pull exactly what they need for the current custom build without wasting hours digging through buried inventory.

Reclaiming Assembly Floor Space

Trailers are huge. They consume massive amounts of floor space during assembly. Every square meter occupied by raw material storage is space that cannot be used for a production bay.

Vertical storage is the only logical solution. By condensing your long stock and sheet stock into a high-density vertical footprint, you can open up enough floor space to add another assembly station. In the truck body business, one more bay means one more truck delivered per week, directly impacting your bottom line.

Veelgestelde vragen

1. Can the racks handle 20-foot (6 meter) lengths?
Yes. We manufacture specific “long span” rollout models designed to support materials up to 6 meters or even longer, perfect for chassis rails and extrusions.

2. Will the racks damage soft aluminum?
No. The drawers eliminate the sliding friction that causes scratches. For extra protection, we can install UHMW plastic liners on the drawer supports.

3. What is the weight capacity per drawer?
Our standard heavy-duty drawers are rated for 5,000 kg. This is sufficient for dense bundles of steel flat bar or large stacks of aluminum plate.

4. Can we load the racks with a forklift?
Yes. While daily picking is best done with a crane, the drawers can be loaded from the front using a forklift when receiving bulk bundles from your supplier.

5. Do you offer double-sided racks?
Yes. To maximize space in a central aisle, we can configure the system to be accessible from both sides, effectively doubling the storage density in the same footprint.