Colby Storage Solutions distributor, Elbowroom, have developed a storage solution involving a new low profile beam, deck and mobile shelving for Databank.
Databank specialises in tape and conventional document storage and growth and business acquisitions necessitated recent storage system upgrades in Brisbane and Sydney, and relocation to a new storage centre in Melbourne.
When Databank’s Brisbane storage centre needed some additional archive storage rack erected at the drop of a hat, Queensland State Manager Sean Kays turned to local Colby distributor Elbowroom.
Elbowroom used Colby’s new Low-Profile Box Beam to distribute the load more evenly and safely.
“The Colby 85mm Box Beam is head-and-shoulders above it’s competitors, as the design reduces deflection (banana-bending), making it perfect for hand loaded archive applications such as this,” said Elbowroom’s Mark Althaus.
“We implemented the new beam when we installed some additional archive storage racks in Sydney and when we fitted out Databank’s new 90,000 box facility in Melbourne. We also installed rack protection in the Melbourne DC, ensuring safe, long-term, low maintenance operation,” he said.
Elbowroom’s solution for Databank incorporated a modern type of wire mesh deck for archive box storage.
Databank’s Sean Kays, said: “We had traditionally used particleboard shelving and, despite being unsure at first, we are glad we took Elbowroom’s advice and switched to the mesh decking.”
“Our main concern about using wire mesh decks was with boxes embedding themselves on the wires, and becoming difficult to slide,” he said.
Another Elbowroom innovation for Databank was the development of a new type of mobile shelving system.
“Storing data tapes is a specialised business. The vault we keep them in has a special temperature and humidity-controlled environment. It’s expensive to maintain, and it is important that we use the space efficiently,” said Mr Kays.
“At our request, Elbowroom investigated all currently available shelving systems and discovered that none of the readily available systems were optimised for tape storage. They then developed their own solution from scratch.”
“Because we have custom-built the mobile shelving units to suit Databank, our solution provides the densest tape storage capacity possible within the vault,” said Elbowroom’s Mark Althaus.
“Our mobile shelving solution has given Databank the capacity to more than double tape their storage from around 30,000 with static shelving to over 70,000.”