Herochu Storage Racking System for Metal Sheets – From Cluttered Floor to Cash-Flow in One Shift
A 6 m × 2 m × 20 mm plate weighs just under two tonnes and costs more than most compact cars. Leave it flat on the ground and you need 12 m² of premium concrete, a 20-minute crane waltz every time it is needed, and a prayer that the fork-truck driver does not high-side the stack. Tilt it on its edge in a Herochu storage racking system for metal sheets and the same plate occupies 0.68 m², is visible for inspection, and can be rolled out and hoisted in under four minutes—without a helper, without edge damage, and without the safety officer reaching for a incident form.
Four years of field data collected across eight countries show the average service centre loses USD 28 000 per bay, per year, to scratched, dented or contaminated plate. Herochu’s vertical design eliminates the three root causes: double handling, unsecured stacking and blind retrieval. The result is a storage racking system for metal sheets that pays for itself in 11–14 months even before the recovered floor space is monetised.
Built for Steel Service Centres, Not Warehouses
Most “industrial” shelving is light-gauge roll-form steel rated for 300 kg per shelf—fine for boxes, lethal for plate. Herochu uprights are 220 × 75 × 5 mm hot-rolled C-channel, laser cut and fully welded. Beam sections are 180 × 60 × 4 mm with a 12 mm reinforcing rib. The frame is stress-relieved at 620 °C and shot-blasted to SA 2.5 before a 70 µm epoxy zinc-rich primer and 60 µm polyester top-coat. The finish passes 1 000 h neutral-salt-spray—three times the requirement for ISO 9001 marine-grade equipment—so the rack looks new after a decade of forklift exhaust and grinding dust.
Load paths are certified by FEA to 2.5 × catalogue capacity; the limiting criterion is deflection, not stress. Even at 5 t per carriage, mid-span sag is <0.3 mm over 2 000 mm—below the threshold at which a laser head will register height deviation. CE and EU declarations of conformity are supplied with every shipment; Australian, Canadian and Russian register numbers are held on file for immediate customs clearance.
Crane-Ready Access Without the Circus
Traditional vertical racks force the operator to balance a 2 t plate on a sling while the crane hunts for centre-of-gravity. Herochu’s carriage tilts 3° backwards and presents the sheet at 870 mm above floor—ideal height for a below-the-hook vacuum lifter or magnetic beam. Full extension is 7 200 mm, so an overhead crane can enter from either aisle without “dog-legging” the hook. A captive neoprene strip on the rear edge prevents metal-to-metal contact; the front lip is radiused 5 mm to protect forklift shoes and operator ankles alike.
Need to pick the fifth plate in a 48-sheet stack? Turn the fold-away crank (or press the 24 V pendant on the powered version) and the desired shelf glides out at 0.25 m/s. Polyamide rollers with sealed bearings keep pull force under 20 kg, so one technician can move 200 t of plate in a morning without a gym membership.
Customisable to Your Workshop, Starting at USD 2 280
The entry-level bay is 1 500 mm wide, 2 000 mm deep and 2 400 mm high—six levels, 1 t per level, delivered in knock-down form for USD 2 280 FOB Shanghai. Add bays, increase height to 7 m, swap crank for servo drive, specify ESD-safe pads for aluminium, or integrate weigh cells that stream live inventory to SAP—every modification is engineered and priced within 24 h. There is no minimum order, no tooling charge, and no “project engineering” fee. Even the colour is free if you can supply a RAL number.
Space Recovery That Shows Up on the P&L
A Midwest fabricator replaced six timber A-frames with four Herochu HC-6020-65 racks. Footprint dropped from 186 m² to 27 m²—159 m² of floor returned to production. At their rent of USD 78/m²/year that is USD 12 402 saved annually, enough to lease a 4 kW fibre laser. Retrieval time fell from 18 minutes to 3.2 minutes per plate, unlocking an extra 2.7 hours of crane availability per shift. The shop now cuts an additional 22 plates per week on the same overhead equipment.
Damage Reduction insurers Notice
Sheet-to-sheet contact is eliminated because every plate rests on replaceable UHMW-PE inserts with a dynamic coefficient of friction of 0.16. Edge denting—responsible for 41 % of plate claims in the 2023 AIST survey—falls to zero. One Gulf Coast shipyard documented USD 22 470 of avoided rejections in the first quarter after installation; their insurer waived the premium loading previously applied to “manual heavy-plate handling.”
Installation Without Welding or Downtime
Racks arrive in plywood crates sized to fit a 20 ft container—four bays per container, 30 % less shipping volume than welded competitors. Components are labelled with QR codes; scan and the assembly video plays on any phone. Two technicians and one torque wrench can build a four-bay bank in five hours using only M16 bolts and expansion anchors. No hot-work permit, no fire watch, no repaint. A laser level and digital torque gauge are supplied in the kit so the installer can email a signed flatness and torque report before the first plate is loaded.
Future-Proof Expansion
Business doubles? Unbolt the end frame, bolt on a new bay, slide in extra carriages. The original rack remains fully loaded during the upgrade. Herochu guarantees component compatibility for 15 years; drawings and bill of materials are released under NDA so your maintenance team can machine spares locally if desired.
Real-World Case: 76 % Faster, Zero Incidents
A U.S. manufacturer handling 3 000 × 2 000 mm plates recorded the following three-month KPI shift after installing Herochu storage racking systems for metal sheets:
- Average retrieval time: 20 min → 4 min (76 % reduction)
- Plate damage invoices: USD 7 100/quarter → USD 0
- Crane operator overtime: 38 h/month → 9 h/month
- Floor space recovered: 110 m² → 65 m² (40 % reduction)
- ROI: 13 months including space reallocation
Order Process That Respects Your Time
Email a sketch, photo or spreadsheet listing plate sizes, weights and daily throughput. Within 24 h you receive a CAD layout, anchoring plan, freight quote and ROI calculation. Approve the order, pay 30 % deposit, and fabrication starts the same day. Typical lead time is 20–25 calendar days; air-freight or LCL sea freight can be arranged to any continent.
Stop treating storage as a necessary evil and start treating it as profit centre. Herochu’s storage racking system for metal sheets turns the cost of chaos into the value of velocity—one crank handle at a time.
