Warehouse pallet racking comes in several varieties, including boltless, adjustable bolt, adjustable hook, permanent shelving, and more. For the sake of space, just two of these pallet racking options are discussed here. Adjustable pallet racking and permanent pallet racking both have their own pros and cons. 

Adjustable Racking

If you opt to use adjustable racking in your warehouse or truck loading and unloading dock, you get a consistent means of shelving for storing pallets full of product that can be adjusted for height, length, and width. If you have several pallets stacked to the ceiling, you can take a lower pallet rack shelf out and drop these tall-load pallets right in this area. If you have half-pallets with smaller items secured to them, you can place these pallets just about anywhere and adjust the shelves above or below them to make more room for larger pallets. There are even spaces and places to install adjustable racking for barrels, if and when you get a load of plastic barrels in that need to be stored somewhere. 

The only problem you might have with this type of shelving is that it can be bumped, bent, and tipped. If an employee backs into or bangs a shelf or leg of the racking unit hard enough, even by accident, you can knock some of the shelving loose. The weight of the pallets on those shelves would cause the racking to collapse. It is rare, but it does happen. 

Permanent Shelf Racking

Permanent shelves in the racking are preadjusted to accommodate most heights, widths, and lengths of pallets and palleted goods. It is very sturdy and very difficult to collapse. Once it is erected, it stays where it is placed. These racks are frequently braced on the ends to help support the weight on each new shelf above, which means that these racks can be very tall and not suffer major structural damages from stacking heavy pallets higher. 

There are more cons with permanent shelf racking than there are pros. For one, larger pallets of goods will not fit on or in the pallet shelves or racks. Two, if you need to make more room or add more racks, you cannot really do that because these racks are not designed for it. Three, if you want specialty racking, such as barrel racking, you have to buy separate racking units that include the barrel racking just for that.