6 lesser-known applications of mobile shelving

15th January 2025

Storage is increasingly seen as a smart way to reduce business expenditure. With online businesses growing and property costs rising, many are being forced to stay put, and better utilise the space they have. Yet while offices are being reconfigured and warehouse racking is becoming more dense, one solution that’s still often ignored is mobile shelving.

An innovative spin on traditional static shelving, mobile shelving offers a unique blend of efficiency and adaptability. While many people will have only seen it used in libraries or archive storage facilities, however, its potential is far broader. Here are just a few of the lesser-known applications of mobile shelving – all showcasing the usefulness and adaptability of the format.

What is mobile shelving?

Mobile shelving, sometimes called roller racking or compact shelving, is a modern storage solution that offers an alternative to traditional static shelving units. Mobile shelving utilises a system of carriages mounted on floor tracks. These carriages allow the shelving units to move laterally, either with a manual hand crank or an electronic motor. The user identifies which shelf they need to access using guides on the sides of the units, then easily slides the units apart, creating an aisle in the desired location.

This design eliminates the need for fixed aisles, allowing the shelves to be compacted together when not in use. This can as much as double the storage capacity of the units compared to a static shelving footprint, or halve the required footprint of the mobile shelving. More than this, mobile shelving offers greater adaptability, as the modular design can be tailored to specific storage needs, using custom bins, trays or shelves to store items of varying sizes and shapes.

Beyond the obvious applications in large institutions such as libraries or archives, mobile shelving’s versatility has found a place in a myriad of industries, from retail to healthcare. The ability to lock the shelves together in a ‘zero aisle’ format when not in use allows them to be used for sensitive items in even public-facing areas. This can open up entirely new spaces for storage, as well as delaying costly relocations or site expansions.

The different applications of mobile shelving

While many associate mobile shelving with libraries or warehouse and distribution spaces, several more niche sectors have begun to realise the benefits of these systems. Here are six lesser-known industries or types of business where mobile shelving is making its mark:

1. Cannabis industry

While still illegal in much of Europe, cannabis is a booming industry in the United States and Canada, as well as more famous examples such as the Netherlands. In cannabis grow rooms, maximising space is essential, given the strict regulatory limits on the number of plants a grower can cultivate. Shelving units also need to be highly customisable to support the lighting and irrigation apparatus required for the plants.

Mobile shelving allows for a more significant number of plants to be stored in a limited space, optimising plant density and ensuring better airflow, thereby potentially increasing yields. Because the system is modular, it can also be easily adapted to accommodate different plant heights and lighting requirements, with units being accessed and modified on short timescales.

2. Museum archives and storage

Protecting artefacts and documents requires not only secure storage, but also highly efficient use of space. Many museums boast collections of millions or even billions of artefacts, the majority of which are not on display to the public. In these instances, the items need not just to be stored efficiently, but also in a way that is both easily accessible and carefully organised, so that the precise location and condition of each object can be recorded.

Mobile shelving systems offer the flexibility to cater to items of various sizes and shapes, while also maximising the use of available space. Using trays, boxes, bins and other accessories, different sized objects can be secured and stored in an efficient manner, without risking damage due to overcrowding. Colour-coding and labelling of the shelves can also help with cataloguing and retrieval, something that may be more difficult with long rows of shelves that are less easily customisable.

3. Cold storage and food processing

Refrigerated spaces are expensive to operate. The smaller you can make these spaces – and the more dense you can make your cold storage system – the more money you are liable to save. You also need a system that can operate safely at these temperatures, without losing functionality or being difficult to operate or clean, ruling out many solutions.

Mobile shelving offers a high-density storage solution for cold rooms and freezers that also operates perfectly at low temperatures, with low-friction movement and easy operation using a smooth hand crank or push-button electronic motor. The customisable shelves ensure that products are well-organised, easily accessible, and stored in optimal conditions, with the locked units helping to preserve freshness and decrease spoilage.

4. Movie sets

If this sounds far-fetched, trust us: we’ve worked on a few! The UK is a hub for movie production, and Hollywood films often require snazzy storage solutions for scenes in archives, offices and HQs. These systems need to be highly customisable so that they can be coloured and branded in a way that fits the scene, while also being easily accessible and compact enough to fit in frame, and be quickly used by actors.

Mobile shelving hits all of these marks, with the smooth operation and push-button access representing a futuristic vision of storage. The compact units can be painted and printed to suit any scene, and often pop up in spy thrillers or detective movies where characters need to look things up. We’ve even been asked to take the shelves off rails for aesthetic reasons – making them fairly useless as storage, but uniquely useful for a director’s vision!

5. Retail backrooms

While retail spaces are shrinking due to increasing cost pressures – particularly business rates – the demand for a diverse product range remains high. As a result, more efficient storage solutions in back rooms are essential. This means not only storing more items in a small space, but making it easy to locate and access those items, improving the throughput from back to front-of-house.

Mobile shelving can help retailers stock a broader range of products in limited spaces. With the ability to label, colour code and customise the shelving, you can not only store items of different shapes and sizes, but also locate and access them more quickly, with no need to walk along endless rows of static shelves looking for items. This ensures that retailers can meet customer demands without overextending their storage capacity.

6. Film and media archives

While physical media may be out of vogue in the consumer market, it’s still a popular and efficient method of archive storage for film, TV and music production. These physical film reels, tapes, and discs need careful storage to ensure their longevity, with strict climate controls and protection from sunlight and debris.

Mobile shelving allows for physical media to be safely stored and easily categorised, with the units forming part of a controlled environment. The closed units and customisable storage help to ensure that media remains in pristine condition and can be retrieved with ease – something that’s just as important for applications such as sampling, remasters and remakes.

–

Mobile shelving’s advantages in both efficiency and customisation have made it an attractive solution across various industries, far beyond its traditional applications. As sectors continue to face space constraints and the need for more organised storage, the adoption of mobile shelving will likely grow – providing a flexible solution to a universal challenge.