During site surveys, I always look out for any signs of damage to racking.
If a forklift has clipped racking at some point, but the load didn't fall, and the driver was fine, it tends to go unreported. Team carries on, and the damage was filed in the same mental folder as everything else that didn't cause an incident.
I completely understand why it happens. Production performance targets are tough. And when there's no immediate consequence, a clip on the racking doesn't feel like a significant issue.
The problem is that pallet racking is engineered to precise load tolerances. A single lateral impact, even one that leaves nothing more than a paint scrape, can take an upright outside those tolerances in ways that aren't visible on a walk-past. The load keeps sitting there. The shift carries on.
What I'm looking for when I walk a floor isn't the obvious red-tagged bays. It's the sites where the damage is present, and the risk is hiding in plain sight, but nobody has connected the two yet.
Here's what that assessment process looks like, and what it tells you about whether your own racking needs more protection.
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When I spot racking during a site visit, the first thing I check is the end of a racking run. Rack ends (the exposed outer face of the upright at the aisle entrance) take the most frequent impacts on any active warehouse floor. FLT drivers turning into aisles, pallet trucks cutting corners, reversing vehicles misjudging clearance: it all finds the rack end first.
Here's what I'm looking for:
The last point is particularly important. PAS 13:2017 (the code of practice for safety barriers used in traffic management within workplace environments) is clear that barriers should be positioned at least 300mm away from the structure they're protecting. That gap gives the barrier room to flex on impact without transferring force directly to the upright.
I regularly find rack end guards installed flush to the racking. It looks like the box has been ticked. But a guard that's touching the upright on impact isn't absorbing anything; it's just a cosmetic layer between the forklift and the damage.
PAS 13:2017 requires a deflection zone between any safety barrier and the asset it protects. For rack end protection, this means positioning the guard at least 300mm from the upright, enough clearance for the barrier to absorb the impact before the force reaches your racking structure. If your rack guards are touching the uprights, they're not performing as intended.
Once I've looked at the rack ends, I walk the face of the racking. I'm looking at the uprights, and specifically at whether the damage pattern is telling me something.
A single scuff at mid-height on one upright could be an isolated incident. A consistent pattern of paint damage at fork-entry height across multiple uprights in the same aisle tells me something else: that FLT operators are regularly making contact during loading and unloading, and that contact has become normalised on the floor.
Under HSG76 (the HSE's guidance on warehousing and storage) racking must be inspected at regular intervals by a SEMA-approved inspector, with additional internal checks by a trained PRRS. What those inspections flag, but what site teams don't always connect to rack protection, is that repeated damage at the same locations means the root cause hasn't been addressed. The inspection finds the damage. Rack protection stops it happening again.
The SEMA Code of Practice for the Use of Static Pallet Racking sets out damage classification thresholds. A 'red' upright must be taken out of use immediately. But the uprights I'm most concerned about on a typical visit are the amber ones: damaged beyond tolerance, still loaded, still in use, and not yet formally assessed. They're the ones that keep me thorough on a walk-around.
Racking damage doesn't happen in isolation. It happens where traffic meets structure. So the third thing I look at is the relationship between aisle width and the FLTs actually operating in those aisles.
A counterbalance FLT operating in an aisle sized for a reach truck is a collision pattern, not a one-off incident. I check the working aisle width against the turning radius requirements of the equipment in use. It's not about the equipment the aisle was originally designed for, which on many sites is no longer the same thing. Fleets change. Layouts don't always follow.
Where aisle widths are tight and turning tolerances are marginal, rack end protection stops being a nice-to-have. The less clearance a driver has, the more likely an impact is, and the more important it is that something absorbs that impact before the upright does.
Read more: Where Do Safety Barriers Go? A Zone-by-Zone Placement Guide for UK Warehouses
Not all racking carries the same risk profile. On a site assessment, I pay particular attention to bays holding high-value inventory, temperature-sensitive goods, or hazardous materials because the consequences of a racking failure in these zones can have a wider impact.
A racking collapse in a standard goods bay is serious. In a zone storing chemical stock, pharmaceutical products, or high-density frozen goods, it's a different category of incident with implications for business continuity, insurance, and potentially regulatory reporting under RIDDOR 2013.
The protection specification in these zones should reflect that. On my assessment, I'm considering not just whether protection is present, but whether the impact resistance level is appropriate for what's being stored and the vehicle types operating nearby.
There's no single UK regulation that specifically mandates rack end protection on every site. But the legal framework creates a clear obligation to manage racking risk, and physical protection is a recognised part of meeting it.
The question an HSE inspector is asking is likely to be: "What controls have you put in place to prevent racking damage, and are they working?" Physical protection is one of the most straightforward answers to that question.
When I identify that rack protection is needed on a site, the recommendation depends on the traffic pattern, the vehicles operating, and how the racking is laid out. There are three main product types, and most sites need a combination of all three.
Rack end barriers sit at the end of each aisle run and take the brunt of turning FLT traffic. These are the highest-impact points on any active floor, and the barrier here needs to handle both frontal and lateral forces, not just direct head-on collision. Positioned correctly at 300mm clearance from the upright, a good rack end barrier absorbs the impact before it reaches the structure.
Rack end protection refers to the guards fitted directly to the outer face of the end upright itself. A secondary layer of defence where the barrier and the racking meet. On sites with tight aisles or high FLT frequency, I'd rarely recommend one without the other.
Rack leg protection (sometimes called upright protectors) runs along the racking face and guards individual uprights against the lower-level impacts that happen during loading and unloading. Fork tips, pallet edges, pallet truck chassis: these are the contacts that accumulate over months and show up in SEMA inspections as amber-rated damage that's been there far longer than anyone realised.
A few principles apply across all three:
Clarity's polymer rack protection incorporates three internal shock absorbers made from the same polymer material as the barrier body, designed to absorb both frontal and lateral impacts from moving vehicles. No floor fixings required.
Before an incident gives you a more urgent reason to. That's my answer every time I'm asked this question.
The assessments we conduct cover traffic routes, racking condition, barrier positioning, aisle widths, and the interaction between your vehicle fleet and your storage layout. What you get at the end is a practical, prioritised set of recommendations. It's not a list of things you've done wrong but a clear picture of what needs to change and what good looks like at your site.
If your racking has taken impacts you haven't formally assessed, if your PRRS inspections are overdue, or if you've never had an independent review of your rack protection provision, it's a reasonable time to act.
Book a site consultation with Clarity
During our Fix One Problem – Targeted Safety Review, Damian and the team will walk your warehouse floor, assess your racking risk, and give you a clear picture of what needs to change, with visual designs showing exactly what a solution would look like before you commit to anything.
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