Applications · Public Sector · Public Record Centers

Repository density, without retrieval drag.

A public record center lives or dies on two numbers: linear metres stored per square metre of floor, and minutes from request to file on the desk. Compact shelving improves the first without hurting the second — when the drive and the indexing are engineered for it.

70%Floor space saved

Against static shelving in the same room — aisles are shared, not duplicated per bay.

2×Capacity in the room

Roughly double the linear storage in the existing footprint before any extension.

40HQ12–14 columns

Manual columns per container — a whole wing ships on one vessel.

24 moWarranty

On structure and drives from acceptance, with lifetime technical support.

The density maths

One aisle instead of six.

Static shelving gives every bay its own aisle; mobile shelving shares one. The floor area per stored linear metre is the number a record center is budgeted on.

Static shelving

Every bay, every aisle

Floor area used100%
Linear metres storedBaseline
Aisles to light & clean6
Simple and familiar — but half the room is corridor, and the corridor still needs lighting, cleaning and climate control.

Mobile compact shelving

One aisle, on demand

Floor area used~30%
Linear metres stored2× baseline
Aisles to light & clean1
The aisle opens where the request is — electric and smart drives put it there in seconds, logged against the operator.

Service levels

What retrieval speed the center can promise.

Drive type sets the service ceiling. These are the targets the terminal configuration is engineered against — and they belong in the center’s service charter.

Request class Target retrieval Drive type How it is achieved
Reader desk request Under 2 minutes Smart / Electric Bay mapped to the request; the terminal opens the aisle and positions the bay.
Department transfer Same day Electric Batch retrieval by section; one aisle opening serves a whole run.
Deep-store audit pull Within 1 working day Electric / Manual Scheduled deep-bay access with the access log attached to the audit file.
Sealed holdings By appointment Smart, dual control Two authorised operators, countersigned in the access log.
Anatomy of a retrieval

Where the two minutes actually go.

A reader-desk request is a chain of small events. Compact shelving compresses the walking, not the paperwork — this is the sequence the SLA is measured on.

Step 1

Request logged

The call number hits the terminal and the bay holding it is resolved instantly.

0:00

Step 2

Aisle opens

The smart drive moves the adjacent rows aside along the track.

0:15

Step 3

Bay located

Positioning confirmation shows the exact shelf, tier and box on screen.

0:30

Step 4

Box retrieved

The operator pulls the box; the removal is logged against the request.

1:10

Step 5

Desk handover

The box reaches the reading desk and the loan is registered to the reader.

1:50

Worked example

A 240 m² wing, re-planned.

A record center wing holding 1,800 linear metres of static shelving is out of room. Re-planning the same footprint as mobile compact shelving is the cheaper answer to a new building — and it keeps the reading room where the public already is.

Existing static capacity1,800 linear metres
Same room as compact shelving~3,600 linear metres
Floor area released~168 m²
Columns shipped (40HQ)10–12 smart / 12–14 manual
Installation window5–7 working days

Numbered manual compact shelving bays with handwheels in a record center hall

Numbered bays with per-bay handwheels — the workhorse configuration of a manual record wing.

Wing planning

The four parameters we plan a wing around.

These are the numbers our engineers fix first. Send them with your enquiry and the proposal arrives as a layout, not a guess.

Linear-metre targetTotal linear metres of records to house, current plus contracted growth. Everything else in the layout is derived from this. e.g. 3,600 lm
Aisle width & egressClear aisle width per fire code and accessibility rule — typically 900–1,000 mm for public repositories. 900–1,000 mm
Floor loadingConcentrated load per bay foot on the slab, checked against the structural drawing before manufacture. up to 1,500 kg/m²
Growth headroomEmpty bays reserved at the close of each run, so the next accession year never needs a new room. 20–30% spare

Bring us the floor plan.

Send the wing dimensions and current capacity — the proposal returns with the density comparison drawn on your own floor plan, inside five working days.

Request technical proposal →