Material Handling Equipment for the Chemical Industry

The chemical industry relies on warehouses to store and handle materials. Due to the potential safety concerns of handling hazardous materials, chemical warehouses regularly outfit their facilities with productivity-boosting equipment and storage solutions. Additionally, warehouses often invest in equipment to prevent cross-contamination from occurring between various chemicals. Part of a chemical manufacturer’s best practices should include utilizing the most sanitary and efficient material handling equipment possible.

Finding out more about what chemical warehouses are and what challenges they face can help you receive a clearer understanding of your own warehouse’s strengths and weaknesses. To address any challenges your facility is facing, you may also be interested in learning more about how cutting-edge and sanitary equipment can be the answer you need to many common warehouse problems.

Jump to Sections:

• What is a Chemical Warehouse?
• 5 Problems Facing the Chemical Industry
• Solutions to These Problems
• Primary Equipment Used in an Efficient and Safe Warehouse
• How to Lay Out a Chemical manufacturer Warehouse: Closed-Loop Systems

What Is a Chemical Warehouse?

A chemical warehouse refers to a facility that stores hazardous materials and commercial chemicals. Since chemicals can be volatile and cross-contamination can make them unsafe or ineffective to use, chemical warehouses have a responsibility to safely store and handle the chemicals that pass through them. As such, many chemicals have strict protocols and regulations for handling.

If you operate a chemical warehouse, you’re aware of the investment that goes into creating a physical storage environment that meets regulations and keeps your products free from contamination. You’re also likely well-versed in the protocols that go into ensuring you comply with regulations and handle materials safely. Since chemical warehouses and manufacturers have such strict regulations, it’s crucial to be aware of the challenges they face so you can optimize your warehouse appropriately.

5 Problems Facing the Chemical Industry

Due to the hazardous and volatile materials the chemical industry has to handle, some unique problems put more pressure on their warehouses than those in other industries. Learn more about the primary storage and handling challenges the chemical industry faces below:

1. More Quality Audits and Recalls

Companies that store and handle chemicals often face challenges in the form of audits and recalls. Producing and storing chemicals has to meet various regulatory and governmental compliance requirements. For consumer safety, chemicals have to be handled with more care than other products. As such, chemical industry manufacturers face more oversight from regulatory organizations and regularly undergo quality audits. These audits often include examining how the chemicals are being stored and if the storage methods are appropriate.

Additionally, product recalls can also affect chemical manufacturers. When a company doesn’t store their chemicals properly or have clear data on where the products are stored, they can run into trouble during recalls. If they can’t immediately find the recalled products or end up accidentally shipping them, a company can face significant financial losses and penalties.

2. The Need to Balance Competing Interests

These companies face competing interests from shareholders and customers. While a shareholder wants to increase their revenues and profits, a customer wants to get cheaper chemical materials. Additionally, regulators want to ensure the chemicals are as safe and environmentally friendly as possible.

With all these competing interests, a chemical manufacturer has to monitor their inventory. A company that doesn’t have a strong handle on their inventory can run into issues where they overstock materials or run out of them before fulfilling a customer’s order. This lack of knowledge about inventory also makes it hard to know when chemicals should be marked down to move them out of the storage facility faster or marked up due to higher demands.

By knowing all about their warehouse’s inventory, a company can better respond to customers’ needs and their shareholders’ interests. An accurate inventory also ensures a company is storing their chemicals properly, keeping them in compliance with regulations. Additionally, a business that knows all about its inventory can ensure they never upset their customers with unfulfilled orders.

3. Lack of Safe and Optimized Layouts

Chemical materials need to be accessed quickly and placed in the appropriate locations. Some chemicals require specific conditions to store them safely, such as particular temperatures or specialty containers. Cross-contamination is another issue manufacturers have to consider, as chemicals interacting with one another can ruin a whole batch. Companies that know how to store chemicals properly pay close attention to their warehouse’s layout to keep their materials safe.

An ideal chemical warehouse layout is crucial because it can help a company keep its chemical products free from contamination and stored in the right conditions. When a business doesn’t have an optimized layout, it may end up with contaminated or damaged items. Improper layouts often occur when an enterprise doesn’t have a clear plan for where chemicals should be stored or doesn’t pay attention to where they’re putting their chemical containers.

4. High Formula Costs

The raw materials required to create chemical formulas need to be stored correctly and accurately. Many chemical manufacturers are under pressure to reduce their formulas’ costs due to competitors. This competition forces companies to try to decrease their expenses and keep their prices close to rival businesses. However, they also have to make sure the materials they use are as high-quality as possible and comply with the proper formulation standards.

One major expense chemical manufacturers can encounter that increases their formula costs is improper storage and inefficient warehousing practices. For example, if workers can’t locate materials quickly and transport them to needed zones, productivity can decrease, leading to higher expenses-related delays. Additionally, overall formula costs can go up if raw materials are mishandled or contaminated, forcing a company to replace them and raise their expenses as a result.

5. The Need for Greater Efficiency and Reduction of Redundancies

Some manufacturing companies rely on outdated processes and technology to store and track their materials. These outdated processes can cause inefficiencies in the storage and handling processes. With the highly competitive chemical industry always looking for ways to improve productivity, a company that doesn’t aim to improve their warehousing and handling processes can fall behind.

A major source of inefficiency in a chemical warehouse comes from redundant processes. For instance, a company may use more equipment than they need to complete a task. Other redundancies can arise from chemical products passing through multiple staff members’ hands before arriving at a needed destination. A company that knows how to transport chemicals through various processes often relies on semi-automated and automated equipment to reduce redundancies in handling.

Solutions to These Problems

The many challenges the chemical industry faces today can be addressed with high-quality warehouse equipment. The right equipment can help you keep everyone happy, meet regulations and lower your costs. Additionally, material handling equipment can help improve efficiency and make your warehouse safer for the chemicals you’re storing, which helps you decrease high expenses and maintain worker safety.

Find out more about how you can use cutting-edge equipment and storage solutions to meet challenges facing the chemical industry below:

• Meet regulations: Equipment solutions allow companies to better protect their chemical products and keep them free from contaminants. Sanitary equipment helps companies reduce the number of recalls and excel in quality audits.
• Keep various audiences happy: The use of high-quality storage and handling equipment at a chemical warehouse can help companies meet various interests. Shareholders receive greater efficiency and production, consumers can get their products faster and possibly at a lower price and regulators see greater sanitization in the warehouse.
• Achieve safer layouts and storage: Top chemical equipment and storage solutions assist companies by ensuring chemicals are stored in the right environments and have sanitary containers. Better layouts also reduce the chances of cross-contamination and other factors that could harm the product’s quality and effectiveness.
• Lower your formula costs: When you invest in top-tier equipment and storage solutions, you reduce the risk of mistakes that could lead to product loss. By reducing expenses incurred by product damage or improper storage, a company can lower their overall costs associated with a specific formula’s needs.
• Enjoy greater efficiency: Updated storage and handling technology reduce the number of slowdowns and inefficient practices in your warehouse. You can find automated equipment that frees up staff to do other work, plus machinery designed for a specific task to improve your staff’s speed. Additionally, technologically advanced equipment can eliminate redundancies in your workflow and streamline various tasks.

Primary Equipment Used in an Efficient and Safe Warehouse

Here are some of the fundamental equipment and products utilized by chemical manufacturers:

• Industrial Pallet Dispensers: If you want to increase your chemical warehouse’s productivity, industrial pallet dispensers are incredibly valuable. These dispensers reduce strenuous manual pallet handling for your employees while also speeding up your processing line rates and ensuring packaging and shipping processes run efficiently.
• Pallet Inverters: Many times, chemicals that are packaged in bags, supersacks and drums will rest on a pallet. When the materials need to be used or transferred to a new shipping or export pallet, pallet inverters become essential pieces of equipment to have in the warehouse. They rotate and transfer materials onto the new pallet, reducing product loss and inefficiencies from manual handling.
• Stretch Wrappers: Palletized chemicals can be oversized, bulky and unstable, making it dangerous to move and transport in the building and over the road. A semi-automatic or automatic stretch wrapper pre-stretches the plastic film and wraps the product to the pallet which stabilizes and protects the load. The stretch wrapping machine is faster than manual wrapping and also increases employee productivity and significantly reduces the amount of plastic film used.  They also reduce the chance of material damages due to shifting or forklift mishandling.
• Plastic pallets: Plastic pallets allow companies to handle chemical products, transporting and storing them throughout the warehouse. If you want to know how to keep chemical goods sanitary, look no further than plastic pallets. Unlike wooden pallets, plastic models are easy to clean, keeping the pallet sanitized whenever you use it for new materials. They’re also incredibly durable and can handle heavy materials. Heavy-duty plastic pallets are especially popular, as they’re chemically resistant and prevent corrosion.
• Washing equipment: Chemical warehouses regularly employ pallets to handle and store chemicals. Pallet washers, bin washers and pallet dryers help workers quickly clean and sanitize pallets and bins before they’re reused for other chemical materials. Additionally, pressure washers can assist with cleaning storage areas, ensuring you have a sanitary storage space. Pressure washers also quickly remove dirt and other contaminants from containers and floors.
• 180 Degree Box Dumpers: Specialty granulated chemicals are brought into the facility for compounding or further processing. Unlike bulk shipments which are directly transferred into the storage silos these small batch containers require that the material is siphoned out. A box inverter eliminates this manual time-consuming process. The container contents are inverted into a hopper which meters the material transfer downstream.

How to Lay Out a Chemical Manufacturer Warehouse: Closed-Loop Systems

When you’re looking to reduce inefficiencies and redundant equipment in your warehouse, you may want to invest in a closed-loop system. Essentially, a closed-loop system for a chemical manufacturer moves chemical materials from the receiving dock to the manufacturing and processing area and then to the final shipping stage as efficiently and safely as possible.

Many manufacturers rely on closed-loop systems to minimize the amount of movement of raw materials through the handling and storage processes. Reducing material movement helps safeguard against errors and keeps a warehouse’s workflow as efficient as possible. In this system, you’ll find many varieties of equipment for the chemical industry, such as automated equipment, assist positioners and captive pallets.

Closed-loop strategies also help chemical industry warehouses keep their materials as sanitary as possible. Since these systems use hygienic plastic pallets and pallet washers, companies don’t have to worry about their pallets spreading contaminants to new materials. Closed-loop systems can also be designed to meet specific regulations and safety standards required for certain chemicals, which makes them more relevant and resourceful for a given facility.

A major feature of closed-loop systems is their ability to automate many handling and storage processes. For example, common closed-loop systems utilize automatic load straighteners, pallet washers and pallet changers. Since this kind of equipment is mostly autonomous, it speeds up the handling process and lowers the chances of a staff member making a mistake while handling materials. Automated systems also deliver greater reliability, allowing warehouses to better predict their output.

Closed-loop systems also make it easier for workers when manual handling is required. Pallet jacks, work positioners and lift tables help workers handle materials without putting them at risk of injuries or fatigue due to strain. Stretch wrappers in a closed-loop system can also improve the shipping process, as they make it easy for staff members to wrap chemical materials. These stretch wrappers also come in automatic varieties, which are perfect for tasks carried out at the end of a closed-loop system prior to shipping.

Choose Cherry’s for All Your Chemical Warehouse Needs

Now that you’ve reviewed this chemical warehouse equipment guide, you may have more questions about our material handling chemical equipment. Cherry’s has a long history of serving the chemical industry with our high-quality storage solutions and equipment. We take pride in our equipment being easy-to-clean, sanitary, ergonomic and efficient. For those who need more specialized equipment, you can turn to us for a customized solution.

Browse our selection of equipment solutions for the chemical packaging industry to see how our offerings can help your warehouse. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.