Warehouse & Distribution Center VRCs
Vertical reciprocating conveyors (VRCs) are designed to help you aim higher and think smarter about logistics. Our warehouse VRCs deliver the material lifting capacity you need to solve complex multi-level storage and handling challenges.
Looking to create scale and optimize performance by automating key processes or building a smart warehouse? Our units let you expand upper-level storage capacity and automate cumbersome handling processes.
We’ll design a robust lifting solution tailored to your needs — from seamless integration with other handling equipment for rapid order fulfillment to full control by an end-to-end warehouse management system.
Benefits of Warehouse & Distribution Center VRCs
PFlow VRCs are designed to offer safe and efficient movement between different horizontal levels, quickly, and consistently. For busy warehouses and distribution centers that comes with significant long-term benefits.
- Improve Safety: VRCs are dedicated lifting equipment with built-in safety features. Reduce your exposure to potentially hazardous forklift, pallet jack, and crane use. Avoid lifting injuries and slips by limiting manual handling and transfer of goods.
- Optimize Your Space: Make more of your space. Leverage scale by accessing more floors with greater load capacity more often. Tap unused space or add valuable extra space.
- Boost Efficiency: Save time and money. VRCs move more per load than other lifting technologies and cost less to operate over their lifetime. Our durable units provide reliable one-demand lifting power with less downtime than other technologies.
- Easier to Use: VRCs are built to be easy to operate, maintain, and repair with customized designs configured to your facility, user-friendly interfaces, and built-in safety features.
- Increased Speed: Get more done by optimizing workflows, connecting processes on different levels, and eliminating bottlenecks. Boost productivity by moving more inventory through your facility faster.
- Reduced Labor Costs: Make the most of your people. Let VRCs automate repetitive and tedious lifting and transfer tasks. Free up your staff to concentrate their efforts on higher-value tasks.
VRC Applications for Warehouses & Distribution Centers
Boost automation, integration, and efficiency by adding true PFlow VRC lifting capacity in these five key warehouse areas:
- Receiving: Upon arrival, bulk freight can be lifted from the receiving dock to storage levels without breaking it down.
- Storage: Connect VRCs to internal conveyor systems or automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS).
- Distribution: Use VRCs to pull ordered items from storage levels and move them to pick modules and packing areas.
- Pick modules: Integrate VRCs with autonomous or robotic pick modules for shorter replenishment cycles.
- Mezzanines: Add extra storage and workspace by adding a VRC-supplied mezzanine for your SLAM (Scan, Label, Apply, Manifest) department close to your shipping dock.
Features of Warehouse & Distribution Center VRCs
Flexibility comes standard with every PFlow warehouse VRC. Our versatile units are designed for installation beside balconies, through floors, in unused elevator shafts, or on the outside of your building. Our VRCs also offer:
- A smaller footprint
- Load rating from 40 to 200,000lb
- Travel speeds up to 400 feet/minute, unlimited cycles per hour
- Straddle, cantilever, and 4-post designs
- Flexible configuration C, Z, or 90º load-unload configurations
- Programmable logic controls link to local and warehouse management systems
- Conform to ASME B20.1 Safety Standards for Conveyors
VRC Case Studies & Resources for Warehouses & Distribution Centers
Custom Material Lifts Double Logistic Leader’s Productivity
Moving at the Speed of Fashion
4-Post Lift Gives Household Goods Retailer Enhanced Efficiency
PFlow VRC Keeps the Pipeline Full for Large Pharmaceutical Distributor
Global Logistics Leader Doubles Productivity with PFlow Lifts
How to Integrate VRCs into Warehouse Automation Systems
7 Challenges of Automating Multilevel Warehouses
VRCs: Providing Lift for Micro Fulfillment Centers Automation
Choosing the Right VRC for Your Fully Automated Warehouse
Mezzanines and VRCs: Key Components in Warehouse Automation
Freight Lifts
Material Handling Lifts
Mezzanine Lifts
Pick Module Replenishment
Warehouse & Distribution Center VRCs FAQs
Hydraulic VRCs provide powerful, efficient lifting capacity, but can usually move materials between only two floors. Mechanical VRCs offer superior speed and an almost unlimited vertical reach and are preferred for most multi-level warehouse applications.
PFlow VRCs conform to ASME B20.1 Safety Standards, meaning they are conveyors designed specifically to move goods, not people. By avoiding the expensive structural and safety standards and onerous ongoing permitting needed to install and operate a freight elevator, VRCs deliver tailored vertical handling capacity exceeding that of many freight elevators at a fraction of the cost.
No. We design your VRC from scratch to match the level of automation you need. A VRC may be the first piece of automated handling equipment you install or a seamless part of an end-to-end automated handling system. Many companies find connecting VRCs with other automated systems at key points in their workflow provides a useful “springboard” for further process integration.
VRCs offer powerful, reliable vertical handling capacity in a footprint smaller than those required by other material lifting solutions such as elevators, scissor lifts, or forklifts. Our custom-built units can be designed to fit almost any space, and can even be delivered in partial “knock-down” form so our expert installers can install them in restricted areas on site.
Warehouse & Distribution Center Testimonials
Trust Pflow with Your Warehouse or Distribution Center VRC
Ready to take your warehouse vertical handling capabilities to the next level with a safe, powerful, and efficient PFlow vertical reciprocating conveyor?
Find out more about how a PFlow’s VRC can add bottom-line benefits and long-term value to your warehousing or distribution center operations. Call us in Milwaukee at 414-662-9763, or use our Quick Contact Form.