Tire Racks can help your business in a variety of ways.  Whether you are a wholesaler of tires, or a dealer directly to the consumer, or a distributor to large companies, an effective rack is essential to your workflow.  Unfortunately, a tire rack is not a one size fits all proposition.  This creates a conundrum for organizations that deal in many different sizes of tires, from consumer class passenger tires, to high performance sport tires, to trailer and industrial machine tires.  Custom racks are sometimes necessary to keep your inventory organized and accessable. 

The essential furniture for a manufacturer of seller of tires can be acquired through a variety of means.  There are distributors and wholesalers across the world that can deliver a quality product, or a low price, or excellent customer service. There's one company, however, that excels in all three phases of this operation.  Tier-Rack, of St. Louis, MO, is the largest manufacturer of stack racks in the United States, and they're not a dealer, or someone else's distributor.  They are the first person you talk to when ordering, and they are the people you call for customer service.  They're the low-cost, high service alternative to re-sellers and distributors, who disappear when a problem arises.  Tier-Rack also creates custom designs, one of the advantages of being both sales and manufacturing.  They sub nothing out to fabricators or third party manufacturers, creating every rack themselves.  When customers need assistance with anything from engineering to local inspectors, Tier-Rack is there to help, and make sure that there is no interruption in your business.  All products from Tier-Rack are also proudly manufactured in the the United States, in our facilities, ensuring the highest quality and care goes into every rack.  

Tier-Rack Corporation has been a leader in rack solutions and flexible warehouse racking systems for fifty years. The original Tier-Rack® pallet stacking frame converts regular warehouse pallets into sturdy storage racks in seconds without screws or bolts. And the Load-Nester® all-steel storage rack features light and heavy duty models of solid all-welded, knock-down, or nestable designs for all your material handling needs. Our portable stacking racks and rack systems are designed to handle and store even the most fragile, odd-shaped, and awkward merchandise. They can be designed to transport two loads at a time. Our stack racks reduce handling time, stack four to six high, and they are capable of supporting thousands of pounds per unit load. All styles of racking are engineered to meet and/or exceed the "2-to-1" safety factor established by the Rack Manufacturers Institute (RMI) for portable rack design specifications. For more information, visit http://tier-rack.com today. 

Tire Racks Make Your Business Mobile

 Using a wheeled tire cart or a tire display rack is the best way for any company that sells tires to operate.  These racks are specially designed for both form and function, and make the task of operating a tire dealership much easier.  They show the tires in an attractive manner, and also make them easy to move through repair bays and sales floors.  They are built to safely store and carry the tires, in order to allow for both temporary and long-term storage.  The SC-TIRSTORERACK from Tier-Rack is the ideal solution for these needs.

However, it's not just for tire sellers.  These racks are great for any place that does their own tires and vehicle repair.  If you have a fleet of vehicles, your repair shop can use these retail tire racks to store and move tires throughout your facility as well.  They are an inexpensive solution to a thorny issue, and can save your technicians from having to lug tires all over the repair bay.

Contact Tier-Rack today to order the SC-TIRSTORERACK tire display rack.  Call (800) 325-7869 and visit us at www.tier-rack.com for more information.  Tier-Rack has been the leader in storage rack technology since 1955, when they invented the stack rack.  This technology has given companies the world over the tools to transform and configure their warehouses into efficient, profitable parts of their business.  Let Tier-Rack quote you on your warehouse needs today.

In almost any manufacturing process, production is as fast as the delivery time on the slowest component.  Tier-Rack is no different.  Our lead time and delivery schedule for stack racks is dependent upon delivery of parts, steel, decking components, paint and other materials required for assembly.  For carts, automotive racks or shipping racks, specialized parts or dunnage components may also be required.

Tubular steel is often the last arriving component.  Most producing tube mills operate with rolling cycles that may vary from two or three weeks to perhaps six or eight weeks depending on the size and demand for a given size of shipping rack.  Mill rolling dates are scheduled in advance since the mill must 1^st   secure flat rolled coils in the proper gauges and then slit and reroll them to conforming feeder coils to serve the tube production. 

Our purchasing department at Tier-Rack works with multiple tube mills in our supply chain.  We visit the key producing mills and invite them into our plants.  This is done to gain a full understanding of their capacity and of our production needs.  Steel pricing is volatile and can vary widely during a calendar year.  At any given time, prices can vary by region, for example Great Lakes vs. Southeast. 

Common mill stocking sizes for tubular steel are 240” (20 feet) and 288” (24 feet).  Consider a common post size of 60 ½” – On a 240” length, the waste factor is 24%.  On a 288” length the waste factor is almost 20%.  Considerable value and cost savings is achieved by ordering a custom mill length of 304”, with near zero cut waste.

On large orders considerable savings are available to our customers who provide a delivery window sufficient to allow for the production cycles on raw materials best suited for the specific job.

Inventory Considerations – Tier-Rack products are designed to meet a specific customer’s needs and specifications.  Generally, each order is a custom make-to-order project.  A 60 x60 tire rack, or a 48 x48 warehouse rack may seem common, but each style can have dozens of subtle variations making it unique, but suitable to each customer’s requested needs and required use.

Finished steel products are durable and are expected to last for decades.  Raw steel is perishable and is subject to rust and corrosion if stored over time.  Coatings and rust preventative products are used to eliminate these risks.  However, excess coating or oil finishes on raw steel create health and safety factors in the welding process in addition to environmental challenges in the cleaning and preparation for powder coat painting.

Although Tier-Rack maintains a significant stocking inventory of common sizes on tubular steel, decking components and parts, it is not cost effective or beneficial to bank materials in contemplation of large order needs or every order need.  Two risks are present – (1) Material losing value due to rust or corrosion and (2) having a large supply of item A, when item B is in demand.

The best value is found by securing material to meet a specific order demand for warehouse racks  This allows us to:

a.        Optimize cut lengths or production mult lengths to minimize material waste and costs,

b.       Obtain matched sizing to assure proper telescoping of posts and sockets.  Although each vender is producing under ASTM guidelines, subtle tooling and production variations can create fit issues if we mix product from differing production mills.  For example, special tooling and processes are often required at the tubing mill for obtaining a proper inside dimension for socket material.

c.       Shop competitively and aggressively from our qualified mill producers to secure the best market pricing and lower costs to our customer.

d.      Consistently use prime hot rolled black steel in production, which is superior for safety and environmental reasons.

Understanding lead time considerations is a critical part of the planning process involved when a customer is considering a purchase of portable stacking racks from Tier-Rack. 

As a producer of stack racks and tire racks, we work to provide the best value to end-users.  This value is a found in a complement of materials and manpower.  With two manufacturing plants our volume gives us significant buying power with major producers of tubular steel, decking components and common rack parts for the basic tire rack and stack rack.  As a sixty year old company, we have the engineering and production expertise to optimize labor and materials to minimize cost and reduce the final selling pricing to our customer.

The following narratives on lead time considerations for material and manpower will help our customers gain an understanding of what is required to maximize value on an order for Tier-Rack products. 

Paddling downstream is always easier than paddling against the current.