Cantilever ASRS for timber storage

Stop treating your timber inventory like a floor puzzle.

In traditional timber yards, specific bundles of MDF, plywood, or 6-meter raw lumber are often buried under tons of other stock. This “honeycombing” forces your side-loaders to make unnecessary moves, wastes 60% of your floor space on turning aisles, and risks warping your high-value inventory. The starack-Long system eliminates these inefficiencies by moving your long goods into a high-density vertical structure.

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The Geometry of Waste: Why Floor Stacking Kills Timber Profits

In the timber and furniture manufacturing industry, space is often dictated by the turning radius of your equipment, not the volume of your product. A standard side-loading forklift carrying a 6-meter bundle of lumber requires an aisle width of nearly 5 meters to maneuver safely. This results in a warehouse where more area is dedicated to concrete driveways than to actual inventory storage.

Furthermore, the “First-In, Last-Out” (LIFO) nature of floor stacking creates a logistical nightmare. To access a specific grade of Oak or Pine at the bottom of a stack, operators must move the top three bundles. This double-handling increases the risk of product damage—scratches, chips, and structural stress—while burning fuel and labor hours.

Implementing a Cantilever AS/RS (Automated Storage and Retrieval System) fundamentally changes this geometry. By utilizing a stacker crane that runs on a fixed rail, the aisle width is reduced to the width of the load plus a small clearance (approx. 1.5 – 2 meters). This conversion immediately reclaims up to 200% more storage capacity within the existing building footprint.

The starack-Long system utilizes high-mast engineering to convert vertical space into usable inventory slots, eliminating the need for wide forklift aisles.

Structural Integrity: Handling the Weight of Wood

Timber is heavy, and its weight distribution can be unpredictable. A standard pallet racking system is ill-equipped to handle the point loads and lengths associated with raw timber or engineered wood products. The starack-Long solution is built upon a specific engineering logic:

Q355 High-Strength Steel: Unlike standard shelving, our columns are fabricated from Q355 steel with a fully bolted structure. This rigidity is critical when a crane is lifting a 4,000kg load of damp lumber to a height of 20 meters. It minimizes mast deflection, ensuring the load remains stable.
Cantilever Arms: The system uses specialized cantilever arms rather than beams. This provides continuous support along the length of the material, preventing the “banana effect” (warping or bowing) that occurs when long timber is supported only at the ends.
S-Curve Acceleration: To prevent long bundles from sliding due to inertia, the stacker crane utilizes S-Curve motor control. This smooths out the acceleration and deceleration phases, ensuring that even non-strapped or loose bundles remain secure during high-speed travel (up to 160m/min).

Integration with Processing Lines

The value of a Long goods storage system extends beyond storage; it becomes a feeding engine for your production. In many furniture factories or sawmills, the ASRS acts as a buffer directly feeding the CNC routers or sizing saws.

We integrate 90-degree rotating conveyors or side-loading stations at the head of the system. This allows long materials to enter the warehouse lengthwise (narrow side leading) to save space, and then be rotated for storage. When production calls for a specific SKU via the WMS (Warehouse Management System), the crane retrieves it and delivers it directly to the saw infeed, eliminating manual forklift transport entirely.

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Data-Driven Inventory Control

In the timber trade, inventory accuracy is often plagued by offcuts and broken bundles. Manual tracking leads to “ghost stock”—where the system says you have 50 sheets of plywood, but the yard only has 42.

The starack system enforces strict inventory discipline. Every bundle entering the system undergoes a profile check to ensure it fits the storage parameters. The WMS tracks not just the location, but the age of the wood (critical for drying processes) and the batch number. This enables strict First-In, First-Out (FIFO) rotation, preventing stock from sitting too long and succumbing to moisture damage or rot.

For extremely heavy packs or molds, heavy-duty mobile racking concepts can be adapted, ensuring that weight capacity (3,000kg – 8,000kg) is never compromised.

Comparative Analysis: Floor Stacking vs. Cantilever ASRS

Feature	Traditional Floor Stacking	starack-Long Cantilever ASRS
Aisle Width Requirement	4.5m – 6.0m (Dependent on forklift & load length)	1.5m – 2.0m (Fixed crane width)
Vertical Utilization	Limited to 4-5 meters (Safety risk)	Up to 30 meters (High bay capability)
Selectivity	Low (Must move top bundles to get bottom ones)	100% (Direct access to any bundle)
Damage Risk	High (Forklift impact, warping, moisture)	Near Zero (Supported arms, no manual handling)
Throughput Speed	Slow (Manual search and travel)	Fast (Automated retrieval & positioning)

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Can the system handle different lengths of timber in the same aisle?

Yes. The cantilever arms are adjustable, and the WMS manages dynamic storage locations. We can design the system to store 3m, 6m, and even 12m bundles within the same racking structure by allocating specific zones or using variable-width storage logic.

2. What is the maximum weight capacity for a single timber bundle?

Our starack-Heavy configuration, adapted for long goods, can handle payloads between 3,000kg and 8,000kg per unit. We utilize reinforced double-mast stacker cranes and deep foundation anchoring to manage these extreme loads safely.

3. How does the system prevent wood from warping?

Warping often occurs due to insufficient support points in traditional stacking. Our cantilever system provides multiple support arms along the length of the bundle. The spacing of these arms is calculated based on the rigidity of your specific wood type to ensure the material remains flat and true.

4. Is it possible to retrofit this into an existing timber shed?

Yes, provided the floor slab can support the point loads (or be reinforced) and there is sufficient roof height to justify the investment. However, for maximum ROI, many timber clients opt for a Rack Clad structure, where the racking supports the roof and walls, eliminating the cost of a separate building shell.

5. How do we handle “broken packs” or picking individual boards?

For operations requiring individual board picking (less than full bundle), we integrate a “Goods-to-Person” station. The crane brings the full bundle to a picking level, the operator removes the required boards, and the crane automatically returns the remaining bundle to storage. This eliminates the need for operators to climb racks or walk through dangerous aisles.