There are several reasons why a company has requirements for an office partition. One of these is the benefit of sound proofing or noise control within the office. Offices that have HR departments based within the main office would need sound proofing for confidential reasons. Meetings associated with staff as well as phone calls need to be conducted in the strictest confidence.
The other reason for sound proofing is that you may have office machinery that is running throughout the day. This can get noisy, especially if you have printers running. Even if they are in a separate space, they can be noisy and distracting for employees.
Meeting rooms are also important to be sound proofed.Often meetings might be internal or external with customers or potential clients. If you are holding a meeting on office premises, there is nothing worse than external guests able to hear the day to day office conversations and noise. It can be distracting for the guest, but also from a confidential perspective.
Kitchens are also another room which ideally needs to be separate from the office. In situations where this is not always an option, the noise from a kitchen can be distracting as often it includes kettles boiling, washing up and the general noise from plates and cups being used. Office partitions with sound proofing within them, or as additional partitions would reduce background noise and contribute towards a better working environment.
There are many different work environments that people spend their day working in; from a construction site, to driving a bus and from a supermarket checkout to at a desk in an office. The office is a common workplace for millions of people but even the office can come in a diverse range of environments.
Some offices consist of a number of different rooms linked by corridors. Staff may not have much interaction between rooms but if they are located in an office with their team then this isn’t a problem. The mangers of the company can also have their privacy in their own offices. The opposite of this is an open planned office which will have all employees in the same large sized room. This is a great working environment for when ideas need to be shared between people and communication is often required. This kind of office environment can be a problem though if privacy is required.
A solution to this problem could be to use an office partition to divide the room up into different areas and have different departments within a larger floor space. This can be taking even further and an office partition can be used to create completely spate rooms within the space. This is a great way to have management offices and meeting rooms.
Many large retail companies will use different types of racking systems to store their goods and products. This can either be in the warehouses or store rooms or in some shops you may find that they use racking systems on the shop floors. Stow racking systems can either be made of metal or wood and are solid structures capable of holding very heavy loads. Racking systems can also be used in some offices as a solution to storing large quantities of items in confided spaces. Examples of stow racking include:
If you have an open plan office then it can help with work atmosphere and creativity as people are allowed to talk, discuss and contribute ideas openly throughout the working day. This is very beneficial for industries where the discussion of ideas and interaction between different departments happens during the day. A good example of this is a web design agency. There may be different departments to the agency, for example the design department responsible for the look and appearance of the website, the development team who do the building and coding of a site and the SEO team who work to get the site ranking within Google. Since all these elements have to come together to form one website, it makes sense for an open office as this allows the teams to talk easily and openly.
If you are looking to add extra space to a large open room then mezzanine flooring is a good option to add another floor to your space. A mezzanine floor is basically a floor between a floor and are often like a balcony that overlooks the open space below. The reason for updating your existing office space in this way could be to simply update the place, offering a new type of service or because of expanding the company.
The work environment conjures up many images of employees sitting at desks working at computers and generally performing office tasks. There are a wide range of different office structures and the type of office and desk arrangement will depend on location, industry and number of staff sharing the office space. If an office has alot of staff that are in and out of the building on a regular basis, like sales staff, they may not have specific workstations and will probably use ‘hot desks’ and those may be partitioned off with an office partition to keep the level of disruption to a minimum.
Cubicles
These are common place in a call centre environment, busy offices and large open plan offices when all departments tend to be seated on the same level. Workers can be situated with a block to create a team environment or the cubicle can situate one person where they can feel part of the company but be able to concentrate without distractions.
Private Offices
Office partitions are ideal for creating private offices where individuals can concentrate or work on confidential issues. This offices can then be ‘moved’ or adapted as and when the time arrives.
Meeting Rooms
Often business will have the requirement to hold meetings that may require a presentation or a situation where noise can be made without distracting the rest of the employees. The use of an office partition is beneficial in this instance.
Storage or Stock Areas
Stationery and office supplies for the employees and paper for the printers and photocopier are essential to a well-run company. Although having reams of paper stacked up against a printer is not a professional look aswell as creating a potential fire and safety hazard. A storage or stock room is great for this use and can often be constructed within the office space itself using partitions.
A warehouse with rows and rows of pallet racking can become a dangerous area to work if the health and safety guidelines are not followed. Racking safety must be a high priority in any warehouse or storage area as the size and weight of pallets can cause injury if not used correctly. There are several important safety factors that warehouse owners and employees need to consider with pallet racking safety and some of these are listed below:
- Conduct regular pallet rack inspections to make sure there are no loose components and take the time to report any pallet rack frame damage. The damage can be anything that would make the frames fall
- It is the owners legal responsibility to convey and communicate the need to check the storage racks.
- Never climb on the pallet racks during or after they have been assembled as they are not designed to be climbed on.
- Make sure that the correct motorized equipment is always used.
- The aisles in the warehouse must not be obstructed at any time. This is a health and safety requirement as pallets stored at the end of the aisles can cause problems loading and unloading, but also when manoeuvring with machinery. In the event of an emergency exit all aisles need to be clear.
- Never overload or exceed the recommended load specifications of any pallet racking system.
- Make sure that pallet rack inspections, or rack audits, are performed on a regular basis by a qualified professional to make sure that all aspects of the system are operating effectively and safely.
For a successful mezzanine flooring installation careful planning is necessary. Like all building projects, you need to plan ahead and make sure you cover all eventualities. Here are a few of the things you should consider:
Permission
Do you need planning permission or permission from your landlord before you proceed with the mezzanine flooring installation? Check with your local authority and with the terms of your lease (if in rented premises) to make sure all the necessary permissions are in place.
Purpose
What do you need the mezzanine flooring for. Mezzanines are installed for a variety of purposes including office space, storage, production space, showroom space, retail space, etc. Your mezzanine flooring supplier will want to know the purpose you have in mind to help you choose the right installation.
Headroom
This is probably the most important factor for any mezzanine installation. Generally speaking, the existing roof height should be approximately 4.5 metres to allow adequate headroom on the ground floor and the mezzanine level.
Loading
Your mezzanine installer will want to know the likely loading of the floor. This is usually determined by what the mezzanine will be used for. For example, light office space will not require the same loading as a production space with heavy machinery.
Surface
The majority of mezzanines use high density particle board for the decking surface, but there are other materials available, depending on what you intend to use the mezzanine flooring for.
These are just a few of the considerations to take into account when planing mezzanine flooring. A reputable supplier will help you throughout the planning phase.
Pallet rack inspections are so vital to warehouse storage and systems as they can highlight and identify the need for rack repair or replacement. The warehouse systems and processes from pick and pack through to dispatch and distribution will not matter in their efficiency if a pallet rack falls or collapses. The stock will more than likely be damaged and will need replacing and then there is the dispatch and distribution that will need to be re-assessed and re-organised. All of which could have been avoided if the racks and rack components had been inspected and any rack damaged dealt with.
Pallet racks obviously have a lot of use and carry substantial weight, especially load bearing columns. Damage can also occur with forklift trucks knocking into the columns aswell. Rack repair can sometimes be done without having to shut down the whole of the factory aisle or unloading pallets on each level, although it does depend on what repair is needed – this would be advised through a rack inspection. Any time taken to carry out the repairs would still be better than having a collapsed rack, resulting in damaged stock and potential injury to employees nearby.
It doesn’t always have to be the rack as a whole to cause damage, it can be one of the rack components that has not been fitted correctly, or has become loose that can make the entire rack unstable. Often an inspection will highlight these components before any damage is done to the pallet rack.
Following on from our previous post, you might be wondering if your business needs a rack inspection or when is the best time to think about one.
Well every business does need an inspection and ideally before any problems have occurred, rather than after a rack has collapsed as then it’s too late – the incident has already occurred and probably cost you considerable amounts in insurance and time lost resolving the racking issue.
So do you know when to book your rack inspection?
- Every business needs at an annual rack inspection and depending on the nature of your business and the operating equipment and storage solutions you may need more or less frequent inspections.
- If your warehouse or storage area is suddenly experiencing its maximum storage capacity. This might be due to a sudden promotion on products and looks set to continue for the immediate future or even if it due to a seasonal trend, which the company has allowed for and expecting – you need to get your racking checked when the warehouse is at its maximum as this will give an idea of how health and safety is employed when the company is busy and also any potential problems which might be overlooked as employees are too busy. This can include overloading the racking or the weight distribution of items of the wrong shelf (to save space) which can have devastating consequences.
- If there is damage to a beam or the racking – however small. It is worth checking as the small cracks can develop or create problems when weight is placed on the racking. Get the small problems sorted quickly with a rack inspection.
- If you have recently installed new racking – it’s best to get this inspected within 3 months to make sure you are complying with the Health and Safety Guidelines and SEMA.
If you are not sure if your pallet racks need inspection it is better to check rather than leave it.
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