Storage system
Partitioning & workplace equipment
Storage systems hold the stock. The fit-out around them decides what the working day feels like.
Office and industrial partitioning
Demountable partition systems create enclosed space inside a warehouse without building anything permanent. Typical uses are supervisor and transport offices on the warehouse floor, meeting and training rooms, welfare and changing facilities, and offices built out on a new office mezzanine.
What you need is driven by what happens on each side of the wall. Sound insulation matters where people take calls next to a working aisle. Fire rating matters where the partition forms part of a fire-separated area. Glazing matters where supervisors need to see the floor.
Steel partitioning and mesh cages
Where you need to separate rather than accommodate, steel is usually the better answer. Interlocking panels divide production areas, form stores and enclose machinery.
Mesh partitioning secures without blocking the space off. It suits high-value stock, tool and spares stores, controlled items and machine guarding. Because mesh lets light and sprinkler water through, it is often the compliant option where a solid wall would trigger changes to fire or lighting arrangements. Panels typically run two to three metres high, with hinged, sliding or roller shutter access. The warehouse partitioning page covers mesh, single-skin, solid and double-skin systems in full.
Workstations and benches
Packing, assembly and inspection stations are where a lot of avoidable time goes. Setting them up around the job rather than around the catalogue is cheap and pays back quickly:
- Bench height set to the work, not to a standard
- Depth kept within comfortable reach, so nothing used regularly needs leaning across
- Packaging, labels and consumables presented where they are used rather than fetched
- Task lighting at the bench, because warehouse high-level lighting is rarely good enough for reading a label or checking a seal
- Power and data brought to the bench rather than trailed across a walkway
The rest of the fit-out
Lockers and changing facilities, canteen furniture, bins and waste segregation, trolleys and picking carts, safety barriers, bollards and column protection, marked walkways, and loading bay protection.
None of it is glamorous, and all of it is the difference between a warehouse that works and a building full of racking.
What that means in practice
- 01
Offices inside the shed
Demountable partitions create meeting rooms, offices and welfare space inside the warehouse without altering the building.
- 02
Security that actually secures
Mesh enclosures for high-value stock, tooling and controlled items, with access control where it is genuinely warranted.
- 03
Benches built around the task
Packing and assembly stations sized around reach, height and how the work flows, not bought from a catalogue and worked around.
Questions
Partitioning & workplace equipment, common questions
What is the difference between office and steel partitioning?
Office partitioning uses a framework with plasterboard or glazed panels and is designed for spaces people work in all day, offering decent sound insulation and fire ratings of 30 or 60 minutes. Steel partitioning uses interlocking steel panels and is designed for dividing up industrial space: separating production areas, forming stores, or creating fire-separated areas in a warehouse. Steel is tougher and easier to move. Office systems are quieter, better looking and better suited to people sitting behind them.
Do partitions inside a warehouse need building regulations approval?
It depends what they do. Simple demountable partitions that do not affect escape routes, fire separation or ventilation generally do not. Approval is likely to be needed where partitions create enclosed rooms that change escape routes or travel distances, where they form part of a fire-separated area, or where they enclose a space that then needs its own ventilation, lighting or welfare facilities. Partitions built on a mezzanine are usually assessed as part of the mezzanine's own approval.
Can partitioning be moved if we reconfigure?
Yes, and that is the main advantage over building a blockwork wall. Both office and steel systems are designed to come apart and go back up somewhere else, so a layout change is a relocation cost rather than demolition and rebuilding. Panels, doors and glazing get reused. It also means the partitioning stays your asset rather than becoming part of the landlord's building.
What height should a packing bench be?
For standing work, a bench top at roughly 900 to 950mm suits most people, dropping to around 850mm where the job involves pressing down, and rising to 1,000mm or more for close, detailed work. Where a bench is shared across shifts, height-adjustable frames are worth the money, because a fixed height that suits someone tall will not suit someone short. Depth matters as much as height: anything beyond about 600mm of reach means leaning across the bench all day.
Next step
Tell us the building. We will tell you what it could hold.
Send a drawing, a sketch, or just the internal dimensions and the height. You get back a layout, what it will hold and a costed proposal.