Save Money with ActiveRAC Mobilized Storage System

Avoid the Static. ActivRAC it.

This week Spacesaver is showcasing ActivRAC® mobilized storage systems at ProMat, the world’s largest material handling expo!

Don’t know about ActivRAC? ActivRAC industrial-grade carriage and rail systems move your existing or new racking and shelving side-to-side, eliminating aisles and maximizing square footage. It’s a simple, cost-effective way to add capacity without expanding.

To further get in the material handling spirit, let’s talk a little bit about why freeing up space or consolidating like-items in your warehouse, distribution center, manufacturing facility or maintenance room actually matters to YOU.

Example 1: Parts necessary for maintenance were being stored throughout individual departments in a 117,000 sq. ft. facility. If a part was needed in one department and it was not in the local storage area, it resulted in loss of valuable production and extended downtime. ActivRAC was used as a solution to consolidate individual departments into one space and create visibility to over 10,000 parts in order to better service the needs of each department. Duplicative part purchases have been all but eliminated through centralized storage.


Example 2: When Toyota combined its Tacoma and Tundra operations at the Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Texas, Inc. (TMMX) plant in San Antonio, Texas, rather than take on a facility expansion, TMMX put the ActivRAC 16 system to work and gained 54 percent more storage capacity in the same footprint. There’s also room for additional storage, even though the plant is humming at peak capacity and producing 200,000 vehicles per year as planned.

Notice any common themes?

Duplicative part purchases eliminated = $$$ SAVED
No need for a facility expansion = $$$ SAVED
Gained 54 percent more storage capacity in the same footprint = $$$ SAVED
No more loss of valuable production time = $$$ SAVED

Originally posted by Julie Weber on Tue, Jan 22, 2013

Spacesaver High-Density Storage Saving Law Firms "Big Bucks"

For the last decade we have been having a global conversation about the future of the traditional office environment. Many companies have moved to more open concepts with less square footage, not only due to the rising cost of real estate (which is the biggest fixed cost of any corporate budget) but because of the new way workers work. Working remote is becoming the norm and people come to the office mostly to collaborate with others. Technology is essential to the success of most projects, and people no longer need solitude to solve problems, but interaction with their colleagues

Even law firms are starting to embrace this new way of working and the idea of doing more with less space. According to an article from the Wall Street Journal, by Jennifer Smith,  a law firm might pay between $1 million to $2 million a month in rent to house 300 attorneys in top legal markets such as New York or Washington, D.C., so the need to consolidate and shrink office sizes could save a firm big bucks!

The attorney of today also works remotely, collaboratively and they are constantly plugged in. The law office of old is no longer meeting the needs of today’s employees. Firms “are shrinking private offices, swapping out walls for glass, and installing high-tech meeting rooms in dead space once occupied by law libraries and filing cabinets…” says Jennifer.

So if the law library and filing areas are being replaced by offices and meeting rooms, where are those materials going? Practicing law requires the use of reference documents and records, which presents an interesting challenge to planning for a more open, modern law office space.

Berkeley Law, a top five Law School, recently used high-density mobile systems in their new LEED® Gold Certified building to store 875,000 volumes all in one location. Without the need for aisles, the library was able to move from two separate buildings onto just one floor and the space was able to accommate study areas, collaboration spaces, lectures halls, and a café.

The same concept works within a law office. Lathrop & Clark LLP, a 100 year-old law firm in Wisconsin, used high-density mobile to increase their records storage capacity. High-density mobile is a great solution for a firm on the lookout for more space, but with the ever-changing needs of a law practice, flexibility is also key.What if your lease is up and you decide to move? What if you need to expand your space onto the next floor?

What if you could have high-density mobile storage systems that could easily be moved and reconfigured when you move, remodel or expand? Enter: XpressDEK® Rail System and Wheelhouse® High Density Mobile Storage System.
Most high-density mobile systems must be installed on top of an anchored rail system (think a rail road track drilled into your floor). But XpressDEK is a truly modular floor system that can be picked up and moved across town, leaving no permanent fixtures bolted into the floor where your file room once was.

So, it can be done. Offices can shrink, collaboration can flourish and your old law library and records room can consolidate to make more space for your firm to grow and change!

This story was originally posted on Spacesaver.com by Julie Weber, January 15, 2013.

UW-Whitewater Warhawks Score with Spacesaver

NCAA Division III champions, the UW Whitewater Warhawks, were in need of a storage overhaul. Their equipment room was overcrowded and terribly disorganized. There were carts and mobile shoulder pad racks positioned in the middle of aisles, in the way of other equipment. There was old equipment that should have been discarded but had been placed on old wooden shelves or in old wooden cabinets to get it out of the way temporarily. These conditions made it very difficult for the team to stay organized.

Due to the equipment manager’s previous experience with Spacesaver while he was an intern, he started to explore alternate storage solutions for the space that could help get the team (and the equipment) more organized.
An extensive space analysis was completed by Storage Systems Midwest, the authorized Spacesaver Representative in Wisconsin, and High Density Mobile with custom end panels became a big part of the storage solution, as well as other shelving, drawers, carts, and work surfaces.

Today, the space is used much more effectively. They are able to keep like-type items stored in equipment designed specifically for those items. Helmets, shoulder pads, pants, jerseys, jackets, parkas, shoes/sandals, gloves, balls, pads, belts, face guards, shirts, sweats and hoodies, small items (cleats, chin straps, helmet and pad repair parts), sideline heaters, mobile travelling equipment trunks, bins, totes, boxes of expendables, and most anything else you can think of are now stored neatly and appropriately within Spacesaver Storage Systems.

Spacesaver Corporation also provided a few options for the custom end panels. With the school’s input, the graphic design was selected and ordered through Storage Systems Midwest. The panels were produced and installed by Jim Greely Signs, and the customer was extremely happy with the end result.

There is also a small shelving unit installed next to a pass-through where players can have equipment repairs made. It has locking drawers with compartments for many small repair items, and a locking, receding door for their stereo receiver that pipes music throughout the building.

The Warhawk Football storage solution has been such a success for the team that several other departments have selected Storage Systems Midwest to provide for their storage needs using Spacesaver products. Custom Spacesaver lockers have already been purchased for the newly renovated men and women’s National Championship Wheelchair Basketball team locker rooms!

Storage Solved.