GB2422145A

GB2422145A - Storage system and kit in which the front storage units move on rails to allow access to rear fixed storage units.

Info

Publication number: GB2422145A
Application number: GB0600458A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Alfred Charles Main
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2005-01-14
Filing date: 2006-01-11
Publication date: 2006-07-19
Anticipated expiration: 2026-01-11
Also published as: GB0600458D0; GB0500733D0; GB2422145B

Abstract

Disclosed in a storage system and kit of parts, in which the storage area is divided into a front and a rear portion. The front portion has at least one moveable storage unit eg a set of shelves, that is moved along the storage area to allow access to the rear portion. The rear portion containing fixed storage units or shelves. The front portion may move on a pair of rails or tracked fitted into the storage area. The tracks may be fitted by rivets, screws, adhesive or welding. The storage system may be applied to the whole area or just to part of the area.

Description

I

KIT FOR FITTING TO AN EXISTING STORAGE AREA AND

RELATED METHODS

Field of the invention..

The Invention relates to a kit of fitting to an existing storage area, particularly for providing access to data, files etc. stored on a shelf, or level of a conventional or purpose built racking, or shelving systems where front access is required.

Background to the invention.

There are three types of storage requirement: * Active, where files, materials or commodities are fast moving and necessitate frequent retrieval; * Semi active where files, materials and commodities are retrieved less frequently; and * Dead storage where files, materials and commodities are stored long term and require little or no inspection or retrieval.

In most cases the known method of storing units of data, materials or other commodities to enable easy access from the front, without removing the boxes or containers, is to stow the units one deep on a shelf or level. Where units are stored two or more in the depth there is the requirement to remove the front unit to access the data located to the rear. Retrieval and placement of units in this instance would be time consuming and labour intensive. Changes within the storage industry require that a racking system should be flexible to accommodate Active, Semi active and Dead storage.

Summary of the invention.

According to a first aspect of the invention there is provided a storage system comprising an elongate storage area having a loading edge which allows access to the storage area and the storage area comprising a front and a rear portion, the front portion being provided between the rear portion and the loading edge, further, the front portion being provided with at least one moveable portion capable of being moved along the front portion.

This invention is an improvement to current storage methods, enabling greater density of data, materials or commodities stored, whilst increasing efficiency and operator effectiveness in placement or retrieval f items for Active data types According to a second aspect of the Invention there is provided a method of increasing the efficiency of an elongate storage area comprising dividing the storage area into front and a rear portion and providing the front portion with at least one moveable portion which can be moved along the storage area, the method comprising providing access to the rear portion behind items stored in the front portion by moving the moveable portion along the front portion.

Brief description of the drawings.

There now follows by way of an example a detailed description of the invention in relation to the following drawings of which; Figure 1 shows a schematic view of an apparatus realising the invention; Figure 2 shows an enlargement of section (4) from figure 1; and Figure 3 shows a detailed view of the system sited.

Detailed description of the drawings.

An overview of an embodiment of this invention is that it is intended to fit between new or existing support uprights on beams 1 or support structures forming a shelf 2, or level, to store data. This is conveniently referred to as a shelf hereinafter but it will be appreciated that embodiments may be fitted to other suitable surfaces. The storage system can be installed on one or more levels of a conventional pallet/ box racking or shelving system. Likewise, it can be removed easily and relocated should it become necessary to satisfy another storage requirement such as standard box storage for long term storage.

The storage system example of Figure 3 could be applied to a box or pallet racking system in an Archive Records store, where it is desirable to maximise the amount of data stored in order to achieve a low unit cost of storage. This would enable the operative accessibility to files, without the requirement to remove front open file boxes to access files or other data types. The system also makes safe and easy retrieval of data with minimum downtime involved, at the same time increasing the life span of open file boxes as they are never offloaded from the shelf or support structure. It will be appreciated that many materials may be stored in an archive records store. For example an archive records store may store paper files, film, x-rays, computer readable mediums such as tapes, CD-ROMS, or many other things. It is however, convenient to refer to all of these as materials.

An embodiment of the invention consists of two profiled steel sections 3 Figure 1 forming rails, these can also be in the form of a steel channel to give guidance to a trolley 4 which are fitted to a shelf or to a supporting steel structure to form a platform as described later.

The rails formed by the steel sections 3 extend for substantially the entire length of a storage area. It will be appreciated that in other embodiments a mono-rail' or indeed, more than two rails may be provided in order to provide a set of rails to support the or each trolley 4. In the embodiment being described the or each rail are galvanised, which is advantageous to increase the life of the or each rail.

Although the rails are conveniently made from steel, this need not be the case and other materials may be suitable. For example, any of the following non-exhaustive list may be suitable: aluminium, wood, concrete, any other suitable material.

The area constituted by the rails provides a front portion of the storage system, which will generally be occupied by a plurality of trolleys 4.

However, it will be appreciated that the front portion may also comprise fixed storage areas in addition to one or more trolleys 4.

The rails 3 are secured to the shelf or support structure by fixing means such as screws, rivets, welding, adhesive or the like depending on the composition of the support or shelf. Thus, some fixing means may be releasable such that the rails may be removed from the shelf, or the like.

Embodiments of the invention are particularly advantageous because they increase the ease of which stored materials may be retrieved from the shelving to which the system is fitted. Generally, only so called dead materials (i.e. materials which are accessed infrequently or not at all) may be stored on shelving. However, utilising embodiments of the invention it becomes increasingly possible to store semi-active and/or active materials. Thus, the utility of the shelves may be increased and revenues of storage companies may be Increased (since higher incomes can be derived from storage of semi-active and active files).

Some embodiments of the invention may fit the or each rails to only some shelves and leave other shelves as conventional shelving. Some embodiments of the invention may fit and subsequently remove rails as and when it is required to store active or semi-active materials.

The trolleys 4, Figure 2, provide a moveable portion of the storage system, run in the running/guide channel 3 and are used as a supporting base for boxes or materials to be stowed, enabling them to be moved to the right or left (as viewed in the Figure) to access boxes 5 or materials to the rear (i.e. within the rear portion). There would be, in a typical installation, one less trolley to the number of static boxes to the rear stowed on shelf 2. The static boxes provide what may be termed a rear portion of the storage system.

The trolley, Figure 2, is constructed using two wheel support channels 6 housing four free running or power driven wheels 7. The wheel support channels can be formed of reversed angles, channels or other formed section. End members are provided by angles 8 which act as front to back ties for the wheel channels forming a tray or box.

The boxes or materials are then stowed on the trolley. The wheel support channels 6 can be separated by a tray of steel or timber to form a tray. The or each trolley may be fabricated from any suitable material such as steel, aluminium, wood, plastics material, or the like, Access is gained to both the front and rear portions of the storage system from a loading edge 10 thereof.

It will be appreciated that in the examples shown in the drawings, the storage is provided by boxes, of a standard width, and comprising three compartments as shown in Figure 1). In Figure 3 the boxes are shown stacked two high to provide six compartments of in a standard width. Thus, it will be appreciated that a trolley 4 is of a width to hold a standard box.

Further, in this embodiment the boxes in the front and rear portions are substantially of the same width. In alternative, or additional, embodiments, this need not be the case. Boxes within the front and/or rear portions may be of different widths. Further, although it is convenient for the boxes in the front portion to be the same width as in the rear portion, this also need not be the case.

In alternative embodiments of the invention there may be provided more portions of storage than just the front and the back portions. In such embodiments there may be provided further sets of rails (whether singular rails, pairs of rails as shown in the Figures, or more rails) to support additional rows of trolleys.

Embodiments of the invention were conceived as a means to provide a method of retrieving files and other data from boxes with front access and as a means of condensing storage of data, materials and other commodities to save costs per units stored, whilst giving effective and efficient means of accessing units from the open front within a condensed storage environment. At the same time allowing operators easy and safe access to data/materials or other commodities which would otherwise be difficult to access without the requirement to move heavy open file boxes, giving greater staffing flexibility, as with this system there is not the need to move heavy boxes.

Embodiments of the invention may be provided as a kit comprising one or more rails and one or more trolleys. The rails may then be fitted to an exiting storage area in order to provide the storage system described above.

Claims

1. A method of increasing the efficiency of an existing storage area comprising dividing the storage area into front and a rear portion and providing the front portion with at least one moveable portion which can be moved along the storage area, the method comprising providing access to the rear portion behind items stored in the front portion by moving the moveable portion along the front portion.

2. A method according to claim 1 comprising fitting one or more rails to the existing storage area.

3. A method according to claim 2 comprising fitting two rails.

4. A method according to claim 2 or 3 which attaches the or each rail using one of the following: rivets, screws, adhesive, welding.

5. A method according to any preceding claim which is applied to one or more shelves.

6. A method according to claim 5 in which the method is not applied to the whole length of a shelf.

7. A method according to claim 5 in which the method is applied to portions of the storage area and not applied to all of the storage area.

8. A method according to any of claims 1 to 6 which is applied to substantially all of the storage area.

9. A method according to any preceding claims in which the method is reversibly applied to the storage area.

10. A kit of parts arranged to be fitted to an existing storage area to convert the storage area into a storage area having a loading edge which allows access to the storage area and the storage area comprising a front and a rear portion, the front portion being provided between the rear portion and the loading edge, further, the front portion being provided with at least one moveable portion capable of being moved along the front portion.

11. A kit according to claim 10 comprising one or more rails arranged to be fitted to the existing storage area.

12. A kit according to claim 11 in which the kit comprises at least two rail arranged to fitted substantially parallel to one another to the existing storage area.

13. A kit according to any of claims 10 to 12 which comprises at least one trolley.

14. A kit according to claim 13 in which the or each trolley comprises four wheels.

15. A kit according to claim 13 or 14 in which the or each trolley is arranged to receive boxes or other material thereon.

16. A kit according to any of claims 10 to 15 which is arranged such that when it is fitted to a storage area access to a section of the rear portion, behind the moveable portion can be achieved by moving the moveable portion along the front portion.

17. A kit according to any of claims 10 to 16 which is arranged to provide a storage area having one or more units of substantially uniform width.

18. A kit according to claim 17 which when fitted to a storage area is arranged to provide a storage area in which the front portion is arranged to store one less unit than the rear portion.

19. A kit according to claim 17 or 18 which when fitted to a storage area is arranged to provide a storage area in which the moveable portion is substantially the same width than the width of a unit.

20. A kit according to any of claims 10 to 19 which when fitted to a storage area is arranged to provide a storage area which is arranged such that items stored in the front portion are stored on a moveable portion.

21. A kit for fitting to an existing storage area substantially as described herein and as illustrated with reference to the accompanying drawings.

22. A method of increasing the efficiency of a storage area substantially as described herein and as illustrated with reference to the accompanying drawings.