How Rackline Stopped the Merry-go-Round

Companies House, based in Cardiff deal with 1.6 million live companies in England and Wales. It is responsible for the registration and provision of company information. Since 1976 they had been storing records on Fische film, retained in large carousels which were very space inefficient. Whilst the Fische records are no longer growing due to the move over to digital imaging, any company’s records have to be retained during their existence.

The Problem
The 30 carousels were each made up of five individually rotating levels so that the Retriever could spin it around to locate the appropriate section and file.
Each carousel was 2.8m in diameter and 8.8m in circumference but which only had the outer 350mm actually storing files,that were suspended in special hanging files. This made 171.6sq.m of unuseable space.

The Brief
Rackline Systems Storage was asked to provide a solution that would house all the Fische films and to create enough space for a Post Room.

The Solution
Rackline recommended their Profile static shelving as the basis for the system but still had to overcome the problem of the files especially made for the carousels.
As standard shelving and files did not meet the access, space or budget requirements they designed special shelving with hanging rails to accommodate the existing files.
The Profile shelving comprised double-sided long runs with the depth of the shelf being only the depth of the file.
The final system comprised of 230mm x 1000mm wide bays, 1875mm high with eight levels of hanging files pitched at 225mm centres.
Geoff Coxhall, Estates Manager commented “Through using Rackline’s systems we have achieved everything we set out to do. We estimate that the extra space for a Postroom would have cost £150k. So even taking into account the cost of the new system and refurbishment, we realised a cost saving of over 50%. Exactly the same percentage as the space saved by the system”.

Using Rackline’s system we have achieved everything we set out to do.

This configuration also allowed for storage of archive boxes for dormant files. All in all 33,810 Fische multi-files and 1,150 archive boxes were accommodated. Even taking into account the space to let two Retrievers move past each other with trolleys, a saving of 50% was achieved.

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