Figure: The face of aflow rackFlow racks, more accurately called flow shelving, utilize sloped runners, usually equipped with rollers, to take advantage of gravity in order to always have the product at the front of the shelf. Items side forward as packages in front of them are removed. The fact of the flow rack presents a large number of items to the picker in a relatively small area. These systems store and feed many different types of small parts in totes or shippng cases directly to the picking location in a first-in-first-out stock rotation, permitting a high pick rate potential. Depth can be substantial, requiring less frequent replenishment. Because restocking is usually done from the rear, product can be replenished concurrently with order picking.
Typically, an employee will walk down the length of flow rack picking items and placing them into a cart or onto a conveyor belt, or sections can be configured in a U-shape to reduce retraced steps. The number of shelves varies with the height of the cartons and the overall height of the flow rack section. Lane width is adjustable to conform with carton width.
