Manual mobile shelving already gets most of the density benefit over static shelving, moving whole runs on rails to open just the aisle you need. Going electronic costs more on top of that, and the question worth answering honestly is what that extra cost actually buys you, and whether your storage room needs it. If you haven’t settled the manual side of the decision yet, our guide to Monotrak vs Multitrak is worth reading first.
What Powertrak actually adds over a manual system
Our Powertrak Electronic Mobile Shelving opens and closes aisles at the touch of a control rather than by physically pushing a run along its rails. For a heavily used archive or record room, that removes the one piece of manual effort left in an otherwise efficient system, and it adds up over dozens of accesses a day in a way it simply doesn’t for occasional use.
Where manual still makes more sense
If a room is accessed a handful of times a day, or the runs are short enough that moving them by hand is genuinely no effort, the extra cost of going electronic buys very little in practice. Our Monotrak Mobile Storage and Multitrak Mobile Storage systems cover that end of the scale well, and for a lot of archive rooms, that’s most of what they’ll ever need.
Access frequency, not room size, is the real deciding factor
It’s tempting to size this decision on room size or shelving volume, but the number that actually matters is how often staff are opening and closing runs through the working day. A large but rarely accessed archive can stay comfortably manual, while a smaller but constantly used record room can justify going electronic on frequency alone, regardless of its footprint.
Installation and maintenance are genuinely different too
Electronic mobile shelving brings motors, controls and wiring into what was otherwise a purely mechanical installation, which means planning for power supply at the install stage and factoring in electrical maintenance over the system’s working life. None of that is a reason to avoid Powertrak where it’s justified, but it’s a real difference from a manual system’s install and upkeep that’s worth going in with eyes open about.
Who tends to actually need this
Busy archives, records departments with constant retrieval activity, and any storage room where staff are opening and closing runs dozens of times a shift are where Powertrak earns its keep fastest. Our Ultimate Guide to Mobile Shelving covers the wider decision between static, manual mobile and powered systems if you’re starting from scratch rather than upgrading an existing manual installation, and it’s a question we help archive storage operators through regularly.
And finally…
Powertrak isn’t a universal upgrade from manual mobile shelving, it’s the right answer once access frequency, not room size or storage volume, makes the physical effort of a manual system a genuine daily cost. Working out which side of that line your storage room actually sits on is what makes the upgrade decision straightforward rather than a guess.
If you’re deciding whether to go electronic, Rackline can help you work out whether your access patterns justify it. Call 01782 770144, email info@rackline.co.uk, or get in touch via the form below.