Sheet Metal Storage Design: Resources & Frequently Asked Questions
Herochu heavy-duty drawer racks—CE / UE / ISO 9001 certified, from $3 660, built to claw back 80 % of your floor space and 100 % of your patience.
Every workshop hits the same wall: the plate you need is always at the bottom of a 12-ton Jenga tower. Forklift drivers become archeologists, production planners turn into fortune-tellers, and the laser cutter that should be earning $300 an hour sits idle while someone yelled “just grab the blue one—no, the other blue one.” Herochu’s high-density drawer racks bury that scenario for good. Instead of stacking, you file. Instead of shuffling, you slide. Instead of praying, you crank.
The Core Problem—And the Single Draw That Fixes It
Traditional storage is a accessibility crime. A 4 × 2 m sheet buried four layers down forces a three-person shuffle: one on the remote, one on the sling, one on the whistle. Twenty minutes later the plate is free—scratched, bent at the corner and now blocking the aisle. Herochu’s pull-out drawers deliver 100 % selectivity. Every sheet sits on its own roller bed; a single operator turns the crank (or squeezes the electric toggle) and the drawer glides out like a file cabinet. No stack restacking, no edge damage, no calendar bleeding.
Floor Space: From Real-Estate Drain to Revenue Engine
Ground-stacking 20 tons of 6 m plates eats roughly 50 m² plus forklift corridors. A Herochu HC-B6020-66 delivers the same capacity in 4.5 m²—an 80 % reduction. That freed rectangle is no longer a cost; it’s an asset. Customers have dropped in a second laser table, a powder-coat booth, or simply widened the aisle so drivers stop clipping door frames. At Shanghai industrial lease rates the reclaimed square meters pay for the rack in fourteen months without touching labor savings.
Safety That Shows Up on the Insurance Quote
A drawer that weighs 5 t can kill you, but only if it can move unexpectedly. Herochu arms each slide with a positive crank brake and an emergency stop that locks both rail and motor shaft. The beam edge is radiused so hands don’t slice open on sharp steel, while low-friction rollers keep polished stainless away from metal-on-metal scarring. The result: one-person, waist-high handling, zero manual lift, zero stack collapse. One Ohio fabricator saw lost-time injuries drop 38 % the year the racks arrived; their premium adjustment alone funded a second unit.
ROI: The Spreadsheet That Sells Itself
Time is the easiest line to quantify. A typical shuffle costs 20 minutes of forklift + operator + machine idle. Do that twice a day on a $250-per-hour laser and you’ve burned $167 before lunch. Pull-out access cuts the wait to 90 seconds, reclaiming 1.6 productive hours daily. Annual value: $108 000. Add 50 % reduction in handling labour and 30 % less material damage and the payback lands around eight months—even faster if floor space is re-leased.
| Structural trick | What it does | Cash translation |
|---|---|---|
| 100 % pull-out drawer | No shuffling | +1–2 machine hrs/day |
| 5+1 vertical layers | 80 % floor saved | ¥43 800 yr⁻¹ rent |
| Hand-crank gearbox | One-person move | −66 % labour cost |
| Modular bays | Add length later | −20 % expansion capex |
Customisation: Colour, Capacity, Crazy Dimensions
We don’t believe in “close enough.” Uprights can be cropped to clear a 2.1 m mezzanine, drawers spaced at 320 mm for 25 mm checker plate, or powder-coated pastel pink because your quality team likes visual cues. Load ratings scale from 1 t to 6 t per drawer; width can stretch to 8 m for shipyard bulkheads. Need ATEX-rated switches or stainless rails for food-grade? Done. Send a sketch; we’ll return a STEP file in 48 hours.
Three Drawer Personalities—Pick Your Workhorse
- Hand-Pull – aluminium rollers, 1.5 t limit, fastest cycle for thin-gauge HVAC.
- Hand-Crank – 5:1 worm gearbox, 3 t with two fingers, no motor to fail.
- Electric Drive – servo or 24 V DC, 5 t capacity, programmable stop positions, talks to your ERP.
Swap one for another in thirty minutes; rails and safety hardware stay the same.
Assembly That Doesn’t Require a Shutdown
The rack arrives as Meccano for adults—bolted, not welded. A two-person crew can erect a 5-drawer, 5 m unit between shifts using only Allen keys and a torque wrench. Leveling feet compensate for 10 mm floor deviation; anchors are M16 chemical studs rated for 8 t shear. No hot work permits, no third-party riggers, no calendar blackouts.
Integration: Forklift, Overhead Crane or Robot
Keep your existing handling fleet. Drawers present sheets at 400 mm above floor so a pallet truck can slide in. Prefer vacuum lifters? The top frame is drilled with M10 holes every 100 mm for custom jibs. Running an automated line? Retro-fit a servo shuttle that pushes the plate straight onto the laser shuttle table—cycle time under 35 seconds.
Sustainability & Total Cost of Ownership
Steel is Q355B, 94 % recycled content, powder-coated with TGIC-free polyester. Bearings are sealed for life, eliminating annual grease disposal. Modular design means a damaged upright is swapped out, not scrapped. At end-of-life 97 % of the rack by weight is recyclable, keeping landfill fees—and your carbon report—lean.
Real-World Voices
“We fit two extra press brakes into the same hall. The landlord thought we’d rented more space.”
— Marco L., Milan fabrication shop
“Insurance inspector walked in, saw the crank locks, wrote ‘exemplary’ and left. Never happened before.”
— Sarah K., Ohio
“Payback was quoted at nine months; we hit it in six because the laser guy no longer waits 25 minutes for 6 mm stock.”
— Xu Wei, Shanghai
Ordering Cheat-Sheet
- Measure largest sheet (L × W × thickness) and heaviest stack.
- Email sketch or photo of existing floor space—include pillars, doors, crane hook path.
- Receive 3-D layout with aisle widths, sweep envelope and ROI calculator.
- Approve, pay 30 % deposit, 15-day production, balance against BL.
- Unload, bolt, load, breathe.
Bottom Line
Sheet metal storage should be a silent utility, not a daily drama. Herochu drawer racks convert buried inventory into instant, safe, traceable SKUs while handing you back square meters you can monetise tomorrow. Starting at $3 660—less than the cost of a single forklift repair—they are the fastest way to make floor space, labour hours and machine uptime appear without magic, just smarter geometry.
