Guest contribution from John McLaughlin, Library Storage Specialist with Patterson Pope.
Compelling design and aesthetics, thoughtful customer service, world class amenities, state-of-the-art facilities...Sounds like an advertisement for a spa or a luxury hotel, right?
Collaboration, community, creativity, pride, ownership, synergy. Surely a description of the culture at successful businesses and organizations, right?
Put all this together and what do you have? The library of future. Like the old TV commercial “this isn’t your father’s Buick,” the library of the future is "not your father’s library" - just the building where you went to get books.
The library repurposing movement is well underway, and has impacted small community libraries, regional library systems, and higher education libraries alike.
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Library repurposing trends require storage of all media collections to be housed in smaller footprints in order to recapture square footage for common areas and collaborative spaces.
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Effective space planning, and the selective use of high density storage equipment, can provide as much as double the media storage capacity as traditional storage shelving, or provide the same amount of storage capacity in approximately half the original footprint.
(Watch the video to learn how Rutgers University used high-density mobile to recapture square footage)
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Off-site storage of lesser used collections using fixed shelving, high density mobile systems, or high bay mobile storage is becoming increasingly popular as a way to store growing collections while creating more room for common areas in the main library.
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Newly developed shelving colors, as well as new end panel and canopy materials and colors are now available to create more stylized and aesthetically pleasing storage shelving to tie into the architectural and design elements of the exterior and interiors of today’s library.
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In the future space will be at an even greater premium, as the amount of “stuff" that needs to be stored grows, and the space in which we have to store it shrinks. Well-designed storage is an important component in the design of the library of the future.
For over 40 years Spacesaver has been the industry leader in high-density storage solutions, but often overlooked is our extensive experience in designing and manufacturing industrial storage solutions exclusively for use in warehousing, distribution, and logistics industries.
To stay on the top of our game, Spacesaver Industrial is rolling out a new website (no pun intended) to better educate our customers on the breadth of our industry knowledge and Spacesaver Industrial storage solutions that address the ongoing effort to improve products, services and process by reducing waste. Wasted storage space… that is.
Spacesaver Industrial’s unique ActivRAC mobile racking system puts an end to wasted space and lets forward-thinking companies uncover square footage they never knew existed, and in turn, allow them to store more SKUs, parts and components.
Better educate yourself on the advantages of ActivRAC vs. traditional static racking through our enhanced slide-show galleries, product brochures, videos and case studies. Also, stay up-to-date with industry articles, whitepapers and our new industrial storage blog.
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Our new Spacesaver Industrial blog will be a collaborative effort among the company’s distributors, industry storage experts and feature a variety of voices, opinions and insights. Sign up for our weekly updates HERE or just take a few moments and share your feedback.
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It’s that time of year again… NeoCon. The time to showcase new products and new ideas, to inspire and be inspired!
This year Spacesaver is featuring several examples of “Sleek space. Smart storage” in our showroom 11-117.
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One featured project is the St. Louis public Library, a 101-year-old library that recently underwent an extensive renovation. The library’s collection, made up of almost four million items, was originally stored on an old self-supporting structure, ten tiers high. As part of the renovation, the space was opened up, much of the collection was moved into high-density storage systems and the rest was left exposed behind glassed-in enclosures.
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The collection was condensed onto three floors, vs the ten, due to the use of high-density mobile storage both onsite and offsite, creating more room for other repurposed spaces in the building, like collaboration areas.
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Colored and backlit glass end panels were used throughout the public spaces to enhance and add to the unique look of the interior. This is a true example of smart storage being used to create a sleek space.
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To find out more about the smart storage products available from Spacesaver visit showroom 11-117 during the exhibition, June 10-12.
In honor of Spacesaver’s participation at the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) 2013 Annual Meeting & Museum Expo™ this week, let’s talk museum storage solutions!
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Our collections storage solutions are featured in prominent museums and institutions all around the globe, including the Field Museum of Natural History (Chicago, IL), the National Museum of Play, (Rochester, NY), and most recently the Western Science Center (Hemet, CA) which was one of the first LEED Platinum museums in the country!
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MORE ABOUT THE WESTERN SCIENCE CENTER:
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One of California’s premiere museums and educational institutions, the Western Science Center, required a well-organized storage system to store their massive collection of ancient artifacts and fossils. The Center is not only a museum, but also serves as a charter school for elementary grade students and includes both a prep room to receive incoming artifacts and a repository to store them.
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In addition to the Center’s role as a community resource, it is also a key environmental resource for the state of California. The 17-acre campus is part of the Water + Life Museum project, designed by Lehrer and Gangi Design Build of Los Angeles, and has won numerous awards for excellence in design since its construction, including achieving the first LEED Platinum Certification for a museum in the state of California.
The Western Science Center required a system that would provide efficient, archeological-quality storage for over 1 million fossils and artifacts, provide enough space to hold incoming collections and cultural resource material found in Riverside County, and meet the sustainable design and operational goals of the project.
McMurray Stern, the Authorized Spacesaver Representative in Riverside County, California, worked diligently to evaluate the complexities of the project and propose a superior storage system design that would help the Center meet their sustainable design and LEED Certification goals.
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Spacesaver’s Eclipse Powered Mobile Systems, outfitted with metal shelving, Delta Design Museum Storage Cabinets and heavy-duty pallet racks, were used to store the current artifact collection. The flexibility of the powered system helped the Western Science Center organize the millions of fossils and artifacts in their possession. Motion-activated lighting was used within the mobile system to help conserve energy and reduce operational costs when the system was not in use.
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To provide sustainable cooling for the building, the Center installed a series of water pipes just below the surface of the floor, making the install of a high-density mobile storage solution much more precarious. Meticulous plans needed to be made because any false drilling could rupture piping and lead to flooding. To help with this complex flooring challenge, McMurray Stern brought on an expert team of subcontractors.
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Want to know more? click here to download the full Western Science Center Case Study!
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OR Stop by
Booth #619 at AAM and learn how Spacesaver can find a solution for your museum storage and preservation challenges.
The University of Washington School of Aquatics and Fishery Sciences received a grant from the National Science Foundation to bring the largest collection of otoliths to their facility in Washington and make it available to researchers anywhere in the world. Otoliths are small bones found in the inner ears of fish and can be used to age the species, and to assess the changes in ocean chemistry over time. The collection consisted of approximately 1.9 million samples, collected since the late 1970s and housed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Some of these bones are preserved in small vials of alcohol and are highly flammable. NOAA had the collection stored in Styrofoam boxes that would actually melt if there was a fire, sealing the samples within, and destroying them forever. The samples were also being stored in a large aircraft hanger with no fire suppression ability, the boxes stacked 20 feet high. The storage situation was such a fire hazard that NOAA was told that the fire department would not actually fight any potential fire and the collection would be lost.
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The University of Washington not only had to find space to store 1.9 million small bones, but they needed to transfer them from their Styrofoam storage containers to a cardboard container during processing (a total of 12,000 boxes that needed to be stored on site).
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Workpointe, the Authorized Spacesaver Representative in Washington, recommended ActivRAC 7M outfitted with standard industrial-grade racking to store the massive otolith collection.
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The industrial shelving is currently installed at 10 feet high, even though the room has ceilings nearly twice as high. This is due to the fire suppression system in the room. To be able to use the full height of the space the fire suppression system will need to be upgraded.
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An unexpected benefit to the current height of the shelving is the ease of accessing the samples with a standard ladder.
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The top mount rail used with ActivRAC 7M industrial shelving system is anchored right into the unfinished concrete, which means no raised floor or grouting was needed to complete this mobilized storage installation. This helped keep costs down for the University and meant that the room didn’t need to be altered prior to the installation.
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The consolidation and addition of this collection of otolith samples makes the University of Washington School of Aquatics and Fishery Sciences one of the largest fish collection houses in the world with approximately 10 million objects!
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Where is the rest of the collection? Stored in a high-density mobile storage system! This collection includes 4100 species of fish, equal to 300,000 adult fish samples in jars or in large refrigerated drawers that were custom designed by the University and Spacesaver Northwest.
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TO READ MORE ABOUT THE STORAGE SOLUTIONS USED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON BY DOWNLOADING THE FREE CASE STUDY.
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Guest blog contribution from Spacesaver Area Contractor Representative, Jeffrey Cox.
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Healthcare is becoming busier all the time, yet, resources for healthcare constantly seem to be becoming more and more scarce. Hospitals are especially feeling this impact. More patients require more services at the very same moment that hospitals are cutting budgets and staff. How do you stay afloat, especially when you take a pledge of “Primum non nocere” (“first, do no harm”)? Technology is often times a solution.
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One of the biggest problems hospitals are facing, is assuring that personnel have the supplies they need to treat patients, and those supplies are easy to access. Especially the high volume of “low value sterile supplies” – the bandages, the syringes – that every patient needs. These items are almost always kept in multiple supply rooms throughout the hospital and traditionally have been counted, multiple times daily, by staff from Materials Management. This model is threatened in today’s environment because:
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1) The staff that used to spend their day counting, going back and getting the supplies, then going back and re-stocking is being eliminated in many facilities.
2) There is rarely time to audit the supply closet and assure you have enough on hand of what gets used the most, and removing what doesn’t.
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My wife and I recently had a baby. While in the hospital, her IV line needed to be flushed - quickly. When the nurse went to the supply closet, she found they had no syringes. It took several minutes to locate one. Fortunately, my wife’s situation was not “stat,” but you could tell it was frustrating to the nurse. What if the supply room “auto-magically” told Materials Management they were out of synergies…without someone having to come count?
Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is becoming well known. Though a little more tricky to deploy than barcoding, RFID has the advantage of reducing or eliminating the human involvement in tracking items. Most of the time, the RFID is used to “tag” items directly then detect when they move. However, in a unique twist, it is now possible to use RFID to track hundreds if not thousands of items in a supply closet, and get notified when you are out of an item.
Imagine:
1) No longer does someone have to go to the supply room closet and count.
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2) The Materials Management department gets a notification when a particular supply is running low. Not out, but low. The staff still has supply to serve patients, but, Materials Management knows they need to get someone there to refill ASAP.
3) Materials Management now “auto-magically” knows what supplies get used more, and which less, allowing par levels to be adjusted saving space and money.
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RFID and technology can truly help an hospital or medical organization meet its mission – when it is used in parallel with good processes and policies. Hospitals struggling to do more with less now can do more, and make sure their patients, like my wife, get what they need.
When you consider that a nurse’s kind of work can be lifesaving, it’s not only valuable to your organization’s bottom line, but more importantly, your patient’s experience in getting well.
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To learn about Spacesaver's RFID Inventory Management Solution: StockBox, download our complimentary brochure.
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How to meet new needs in old spaces
Long gone are the days when the main purpose of a library was to store the books and media for the community to borrow. Today, libraries are more popular than ever being used by a wide variety of patrons with varying needs.
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In libraries, patrons will now find computer labs with access to the Internet, employment services, meeting/conference/workshop spaces, lounges, and even coffee cafes. Some of this library repurposing is reactive, but much of it is pro-active. Libraries realize that they must repurpose to maintain and grow patronage.
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Existing libraries face a new challenge: How can space be cleared to make room for these new functions when the collection is continuing to grow? Today’s College and University Libraries have about 1 billion books on their shelves and approximately 25 million more volumes are added every year.
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Existing libraries face a new challenge: How can space be cleared to make room for these new functions when the collection is continuing to grow? Today’s College and University Libraries have about 1 billion books on their shelves and approximately 25 million more volumes are added every year.
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If there is no way to add space to an existing library for these new books, then there are two basic choices.
Option 1: Fit the books into a smaller space within the library, through the use of high-density mobile storage.
Option 2: Move some of the books to an off-site facility. With off-site storage you can store large volumes of material or records off-site and still maintain appropriate access to them while freeing up valuable onsite space for library repurposing.
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When adequate space or structural capacity cannot be created in the existing library of a university building, libraries move their low-use materials to warehouses off-campus. To minimize the footprint, and thus the cost of land, the facilities are built tall. The interior is filled with books on shelving, typically 30 to 45 (9 to 14 meters) feet high. Here, items are arranged by size, versus call numbers, to maximize density. To retrieve items, staff members use high-reach lift trucks.
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Pioneered by Harvard University in the mid-1980s, Static High Bay Storage applies commercial warehousing principles to library space and preservation issues. Environmental controls ensure preservation of books and film while conserving space on campus for heavily used collections and services.
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Mobile High-Bay Storage, which applies the basic principles of high-density mobile shelving to archive warehouse environments. These mobile systems consist of shelving units typically 30 feet (9 meters) high with 30 or more tiers of shelves. All components are designed to accept the loads from the tall stacks. To access specific items, staff members press a control head mounted on a stanchion at end of the aisle, or via remote control. The carriages move sequentially to open the selected aisle. Staff members retrieve materials using wire-guided, person-aboard narrow-aisle picker vehicles.
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To learn more about XTend High Bay Solutions from Spacesaver download this FREE Info Sheet!
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Guest blog contribution from Spacesaver Distributor and ShelfPlus president, Tom Jameson
As a Spacesaver industrial storage expert, we’re often asked to evaluate and correct shelving layouts for companies hampered by inefficient storage areas. In almost all cases, these problems are caused by insufficient planning on the part of management prior to purchasing and installing the shelving.
Here are some basic guidelines and insights that’ll help you plan & install an efficient shelving system in your warehouse.
For simplicity and clarity, we’ll base shelving examples on the most common standard unit load size: A 36” x 18” shelving unit. Our space model for this blog is an area 30 feet wide by 46 feet long (1,656 square feet).
Want to save space? Avoid this layout!
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Let’s start by analyzing a shelving pattern we often see that is clean and deceptively simple. It also is about the least efficient layout you could implement, accommodating only 135 sections of shelving in our model shelving section.
See how this plan violates 4 key principles of efficient shelving layout. The layout displayed as logical as it may appear is a bad use of space because it violates all four of these shelving efficiency rules:
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NEVER lay out shelving across the short dimension of your space. This creates wasted space equaling approximately 5% of your floor space.
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NEVER create a perimeter aisle with single-deep shelving single deep around the walls. This error will cost you another 5% of your storage space (and limit other options, as well).
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NEVER position shelving in the same area oriented in two different directions, i.e. part of the shelving going north/south, the remainder oriented east/west. A gain, this error imposes another penalty of at least 5% penalty in utilization of your available floor space.
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NEVER create an aisle at a wall. Every aisle should give access to shelves on both sides. It takes the same width aisle to serve two sides as one side, so if you use only one side, you’ll waste space unnecessarily.
Follow the rules, save 12% floor space
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 Figure 2
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A more efficient layout, illustrated in (Fig.2) accommodates 150 sections of shelving compared to only 135 sections in (Fig. 1). That’s 12% more storage in the same 1,656 square feet of floor space.
Now, I know from real world experience, it may not always be possible to create the perfect shelving layout. But keep in mind, to the extent you bend any of the four key rules, you are costing yourself part of your available floor space (up to 25% if you’re careless enough to break all four rules).
More shelving types provide options
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Mobile Shelving - Figure 3
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Besides static shelving, there are various kinds of shelving that can help you store more in the same space.
Using versatile mobile ActivRAC® shelving on our model floor (Fig. 3) allows us use wasted aisle space for storage and increase storage capacity to 240 shelving sections…a substantial 60% increase over the standard static shelving layout.
Mobile shelving systems operate on mobile carriages that eliminate unused aisle space. There are virtually no limits to the size, bulk, weight or shape of items they can store.
Flexible and adaptable, mobile systems work within many building support or ceiling restrictions and can be reconfigured easily if needs change. They’re particularly good for the 80% of your inventory that’s slow- moving or seasonal.
Vertical lifts modules let you use dead air space as storage space. Vertical lifts or vertical carousels up to 40-feet high can convert unused overhead space into productive storage space.
In this example, two 25-foot vertical lift units store the equivalent of 150 sections of shelving in a fraction of the space required by standard shelving. Vertical lifts also provide a safe ergonomic picking process.
Modular drawers and cabinets provide the same capacity as 150 sections of shelving. Replacing shelving with modular drawers or drawers in shelving provides easy, secure access and can achieve up 50% -75% in floor space savings.
Valuable tip for drawing your layout
Here’s another rule I've found invaluable for quickly and efficiently designing shelving layouts.
Draw your initial shelving layout (using space-saving rules above) as if there are no columns or obstructions present in your building.
After you’ve designed the most efficient layout for your space, then draw in the columns and obstructions and adjust your initial, highly efficient layout as little as possible to accommodate obstructions.of course, there are always floor space obstructions.
Columns may be positioned in awkward places...heaters, lights, drain pipes, and other hardware may clutter your headroom... and your safety engineer may have requirements that further complicate your layout task.
That’s why creating an efficient shelving layout system always involves flexibility and compromise.
More ideas, no-cost professional help
Remember these ideas when planning your shelving layout project:
1) Keep all shelving rows going in one direction, in the direction of product flow
2) Manage the obstructions to good layout. Don’t let them manage you.
3) Allow enough clearance for smooth traffic flow under varying conditions.
4) Design your system with your next storage expansion in mind.
With all the traps and pitfalls involved in setting up an efficient shelving system, it often makes sense to get professional advice on the best, most cost-effective layout for your operation.
Are you rethinking your current storage options?
Click here to contact one of our industrial storage specialists for a free site assessment or storage consultation.
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There’s a new gem in West Bend, Wisconsin! Originally founded in 1961 as the West Bend Gallery of Fine Arts (later the West Bend Art Museum) the Museum of Wisconsin Art (MOWA) celebrated the Grand Opening of their new, state of the art museum last weekend (April 5-7th). It’s a wedge-shaped contemporary building, set along the river in West Bend.
Shelley Smith, a local artist and Spacesaver employee, attended the Artists and Members Reception on Friday evening and the Grand Opening on Saturday.
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One of the biggest topics of discussion during the grand opening was the visible Collections Storage area, which sports Spacesaver Art Racks. The collection storage is located in the middle of the upper gallery, with glass walls and doors on either end, providing visibility to the stored works that would normally be hidden from visitors’ sight. In addition, the exhibit can easily be changed, just by rolling the panels side to side for rearrangement.
It was really neat to see people’s eyes light up and hear them talking about this feature of the museum.
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They have some beautiful exhibits and pieces in their collection, including a piece by Shelley Smith, a Spacesaver employee, titled, “Tunnel Vision,” as shown in the State Gallery as part of the Wisconsin Regional Artists Association exhibit.
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With the multitude of new brands, breweries and specialty brews popping up around the world, beer storage is now at a premium.
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According to the National Beer Wholesalers Association (NBWA) biannual Distributor Productivity Report, in 1996 the average distributor carried 190 unique Stock Keeping Units (SKUs) from an average of 9 different beer suppliers. In 2010, the number of SKUs in the average warehouse skyrocketed to 536 from 18 different beer suppliers.*
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Once clean and organized stock coolers are now jammed full of micro-brews that need to be accessed easily and often. Seem impossible? It isn't! There is a way to have all of that stock FULLY accessible, while maintaining order among the chaos and that is through the use of mobile pallet racking.
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A Midwest Beer Distributor recently installed Mobile Pallet Racking into their new keg cooler. The cooler storage capacity was increased by 60%. This was a major cost savings that allowed an increase in the number of SKU's over a conventional pallet rack storage system. The system design allowed the distributor to use their existing pallet rack and accommodate the use of their existing counterbalanced lift trucks.
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There is NO NEED to purchase expensive material handling equipment to obtain this type of storage capacity. The mobile storage system design allowed a major increase in cooler capacity storage as well as allowed 100% access to every SKU. The customer has access to every pallet without being required to move a pallet out of the way to get access to another pallet.
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Learn more about the Beer Distribution Problems Brewing by reading this whitepaper by By John T. Phelan, Jr., P.E.
*Best Practices in Managing an Expanded Product Portfolio, Sponsored by the Beer Industry Electronic Commerce Coalition.