Pictured above: empty bays of green-upright, orange-beam pallet racking with wire mesh decks along a yellow aisle line, each beam level carrying its own numbered location label. Every one of those levels has a load limit, and the label on the beam says where a pallet is, not what it is allowed to weigh.

Ask who decides which pallet goes on which level and the answer in most warehouses is "whoever is driving the forklift". That is fine while the pallets weigh roughly the same. It stops being fine the day a heavy line arrives, because a racking bay does not care how tidy the put-away was. It only cares what ends up on each pair of beams.

This article is about writing a short put-away rule by weight: a few lines, agreed once, that tell a driver or an agency worker which level a pallet may go on without having to stop and ask. It sits on top of the capacity work you do when you choose a load class, and it is the part that keeps the design true after the first month of use.

Why the racking cannot enforce this for you

Racking is passive. A beam pair will take any pallet a forklift can lift to it, up to the point where it bends. Nothing stops a heavy pallet from being placed on a level whose beams were designed for much less, and nothing stops two heavy pallets from sharing a level that was sized for one.

We size racking against the heaviest pallet you actually run, not the average, and we design to the real-world rating of 70 to 80% of the catalogue figure. The reason is the same as the reason for this article: the racking does not know which pallet is going where. A heavy pallet goes into whatever gap is free, including the top level, and the beams have to carry it on that day.

A put-away rule closes that gap from the other side. Instead of designing every level for the worst case that could happen, you decide where the worst case is allowed to happen.

Start from the three figures, not the catalogue

The rule has to be built from your own racking, so the first step is to find what each level is actually rated for. Three figures get mixed up, and the load capacity article spells them out: the weight of one pallet, the rating of one beam level (a pair of beams carrying every pallet on it together), and the rating of the whole bay.

Our V-series range is named for the per-level figure, so V3000 is 3,000 kg per beam level and V8000 is 8,000 kg per beam level. The figure to use is the one on the load notice fixed to your run, because the notice describes that configuration. If you do not have one, the next step is to get the racking assessed as installed, which is what our article on load notices sets out. A put-away rule written against a number nobody can show is a guess with a laminated sheet on top.

Four rules that cover most warehouses

1. The heaviest lines go on the lowest positions. Floor-level pallets do not load a beam at all, and the first beam level is the easiest to place on accurately and the easiest to check by eye. A heavy pallet at the top level is the hardest one to place cleanly and the most damaging if it is dropped or knocked. Put your list of the top five heaviest pallets, with their SKUs, where nobody has to climb or reach to deal with them.
2. A level carries only what its rating allows, added together. The per-level rating covers every pallet on that pair of beams at once. If a level holds two pallets, the rule has to say what the two together may weigh, not what each may weigh. This is the number that gets forgotten, because people remember the figure for a single pallet.
3. Weight bands, not pallet by pallet. Nobody can weigh every pallet at put-away. Write two or three bands (for example light, medium, heavy) against product lines your inbound paperwork already identifies, and say which levels each band may use. A driver can then follow the rule from the label on the pallet or the SKU, and nobody has to look anything up.
4. Mixed weights share a level only if the total still fits. The common failure is a heavy pallet placed next to a light one on a level where the heavy one is allowed alone, with a second heavy pallet arriving later into the free position. Where mixing is likely, either mark the positions for a single heavy pallet or give heavy lines their own bays.

Where the rule meets the rest of the layout

Weight is not the only thing that decides a level. Frequency decides it too: fast-moving stock is best low, so that nobody has to work at height to reach it, which is the argument in our article on picking from the top levels. In practice the two rules pull the same way for most stock, since heavy and fast both belong near the floor. The conflict appears with the product that is light and fast and the product that is heavy and slow. The first is easy to place. The second is where you decide: heavy and slow still goes low, and it occupies a position you would otherwise give to a fast mover.

That is a reason to settle the rule while the layout is still on paper. Count how many positions at the lowest levels the heavy lines will need, and compare that with the total. If the heavy lines need more low positions than you have, the answer is a layout or load-class change decided now, not a rule that people quietly break in week three.

Pallet condition changes what a level can safely carry too, and the pallet is not always the one the racking was designed around. What damaged pallets do to your racking covers the faults to look for at the moment of putting away.

Making the rule something people follow

A rule that lives in a drawer will not be followed by an agency worker in their second week. Three things make the difference:

• Put it where the decision is made. At the end of each aisle or on the notice board by the dock, in plain words: "Heavy: bottom two positions only." Not a table that needs reading.
• Keep it short. Three bands and one line each. If the rule needs a page, it will not be applied at speed.
• Brief new people on it. The first-day briefing in what to tell new staff before the first pallet is the natural place for it.

When the rule has to change

Rewrite it whenever the stock changes. A new product line that is denser than anything before, a customer who sends drums or paper, a supplier who changes pallet size or load: each of these can push a line out of its band. If a beam level has been moved to fit a taller pallet, the figures on the load notice no longer apply, and the rule has to be rewritten from the reissued notice.

If you find lines that do not fit any level in the current racking, that is information. It means the load class is wrong for part of the warehouse, or the heavy lines belong in a different system. It is cheaper to find that out from a one-page rule than from a bowed beam.

What to have ready before you ask for a layout

1. The five heaviest pallets you run, with the SKU and gross weight of each.
2. The load notice for each existing run, or a photograph of the frame if there is none.
3. How many levels each run has and the height of the first beam.
4. Which lines are fast-moving and which are slow.
5. Whether agency or new staff do put-away on a normal day.

Talk it through

If you are planning racking, or have racking whose limits nobody can show you, message us on WhatsApp with the site location, the forklift type, your heaviest pallet and how many beam levels you have. We will tell you whether the layout can support a put-away rule as it stands. The systems and load classes we build are on our pallet racking page, and inspection of racking already in use is covered on our rack inspection page.

Related reading: working out the load class you actually need · rack load notices