How Much Does a Pallet Racking Inspection Cost?

What you’ll learn in this video

– How much does a warehouse racking or pallet racking inspection really cost? How can you estimate what you’ll pay to have the racks inspected at your facility? Today, we’ll break down exactly what you can expect to pay, what’s included, what increases or decreases the price, and how to estimate your budget based on what you already know about your facility?

My name is Ben and this is the “Lifting & Rigging Channel.” Today, Marc Smith, Warehouse Solution Specialist at Mazzella is breaking down pallet rack inspection pricing.

How much do warehouse racking or pallet racking inspections cost?

So, Marc, let’s get right into it. Right off the bat, how much can someone expect to pay for a pallet rack or warehouse racking inspection?

– Good question. There’s a lot of variables that go into the pricing model. Single day inspection averages between $6,800 and $7,800 and that would be for our traditional Home Depot or Lowe’s type style building.

And then we also offer two day inspection options and those normally range between $7,800 and $9,800.

Could last beyond that. We’ve had some customers that it took a whole week. It just depends on really the nature of the operations.

What factors affect rack inspection pricing?

– Obviously, like you just said, not every customer is going to be the same. There’s a lot of factors that go into that. What are some of the things that are going to drive that price up? So if you’re going to be in the top tier or more.

– It really depends on what type of services they’re looking for. Are we looking to replace damaged equipment or are we just looking for an overall safety inspection or are they requiring engineering services or is it just a visual safety inspection?

The size of the building, the quantity of racking, the type of racking, the condition of the racking. There’s a lot of variables that can drive the price both up and down.

How does racking condition, size, and type impact inspection pricing?

– So when you say condition of the racking, what do you mean by that?

– Like new racking, if it was recently purchased versus racking that’s decades old that’s been consolidated over time or across several business consolidations.

– So things that going to drive the price down, good condition racking, you know, small places. Is there anything else that comes into play there?

– Yeah, there’s a couple variables. Certainly like you said, like new racking, traditionally we’ll have less damage. The industry that we’re inspecting is prone to more or less type damage. The quantity of rack, if it’s a smaller number of bays or uprights, could drive the price down.

Why do rack inspection costs vary between companies?

– If someone’s shopping around for rack inspection pricing, they might be seeing some different prices out there. What are some of the things that make some companies more expensive or less expensive than others? And then where does Mazzella fall in that range?

– There are a lot of variables and it’s really the approach that you take when it comes to implementing these inspections.

We take a very consultative approach. We want to make sure the customer understands what we’re looking for and what’s compliant and what isn’t.

What are we leaving them with? Type of reporting, what type of material can they use to educate their team and also their employees moving forward?

So I’d say Mazzella is very competitive from my experience. There’s some people that are less expensive and some that are grossly more. It really depends on the deliverable, really what you’re getting for the money. And we find Mazzella to be very competitive in this segment.

– So why would someone be like way cheaper

– Based on experience. Maybe they don’t have a lot of experience, they’re not really up to date on the compliancy, they don’t really know what they’re looking for, they’re just kind of walking through looking for the obvious things. So really it comes down to a time standard if you don’t have the experience in knowing what you’re looking for.

Do racking inspections vary across the industry?

– Are there variations of the types of racking inspections that you might find in the industry or are they all basically the same thing?

– There are variations. Mazzella has different levels of inspections, depends on the quantity of rack, the type of rack, the condition of the rack, the age of the rack, and again, the services that they’re requesting.

Once we get on site and we do a preliminary review, we may have some other recommendations.

Are aerial lifts needed for tall rack inspections?

– Can you inspect all racks from the ground or if they’re really tall racks, are you going to have to get in the air and is that going to change the pricing or do other people specialize in that and we don’t?

– No, it really just depends on what the customer’s needs are.

I’d say 90% of our inspections are done from the ground level because 90% of all impacts and damage can either be seen at the ground level or actually occurs at the ground level.

If you don’t need to introduce an aerial lift, that’s just going to drive the cost up in order to get in and look at different levels of racking.

What’s included in a Mazzella rack inspection?

– What is included in the price of a Mazzella rack inspection and then is that pretty much standard across the industry?

– There really is no standard, to be honest with you. There’s no regulations that need to be followed when it comes to a safety inspection.

We provide as part of our services, we provide an onsite inspection. We arrange and allocate a consultative time to communicate with the customer before and after the inspection. And then also we provide a deliverable report, which will document all of our concerns, all of our recommendations, and then we work with the customer to address those and put together a safety plan.

How can you tell if you need a one-day or multi-day inspection?

– Before you mentioned that, you know, you can have a one-day, full-day inspection, you can have a two-day inspection, then you said some places are going to take a full week. What are some of the factors that come into play that cause that time to go up? And if you are a customer or if you’re someone looking for a rack inspection, how can you determine, is my facility going to be a one day, two day, three day, five day?

– Normally we can identify or narrow down that scope pretty easily with a couple of phone calls or some pictures of the site or a site visit, depending on the location of the customer’s site. But to answer your question, the difference between a one day, a two day and a week, let’s say inspection would really be the quantity of rack, the age, and the type.

– So give me an average one day inspection.

– The most relevant example that we have is a Home Depot or Lowe’s. So if you walk into any of those big box stores and you see they all have the same type of rack, they have a lot of it. That’s probably a 300,000 square foot facility, maybe more. It’s all the same type of rack. It’s normally fairly new, it’s fairly in good condition traditionally. So that would be a traditional one-day inspection.

Are there hidden costs or discounts in rack inspections?

– So are there any hidden costs that you might find in your racking inspection? You know, cancellation policy, things like that?

– Not really, unless the scope changes beyond initial conversations. We’ll communicate via in person or teams calls and we’ll come up with a an agreed upon price if the scope changes. At that point, the cost could potentially change.

As far as cancellations go, I think once travel arrangements are made, there would be a cancellation cost. But prior to transportation and travel arrangements being arranged, there should be no special or hidden costs, again, unless the scope changes.

– Does the quote ever change when you get on-site and start to do the inspection?

– Nope. If we don’t do our due diligence on the front-end and understanding the scope and agreeing on that with the customer, if we do happen to get on site and find out that, wow, we missed this whole part of the building, then that’s on us.

– Discounts. Any discounts?

– Yeah, for sure. I mean, there’s a case-by-case basis. There’s multiple facilities. We just did an inspection last week where they had two facilities that were 20 minutes apart from each other. So a multiple facility discount was in order there. They were also a new customer, so there was an additional discount for them as well. And the racking was all very similar across both of those facilities.

How does billing work for rack inspections?

– So once the inspection’s over, do customers pay at the time of service? Do they get a bill? How’s it work?

– Yeah, we invoice them just like they would any other service and product that they would buy or purchase from Mazzella.

– Are there any special circumstances where the pricing that we just laid out right now is not going to apply to maybe a specific person or a specific company?

– It’s possible, but unlikely. The ranges that we discussed really cover a lot of the variables.

How can inspections show ROI and damage patterns?

– How can a customer track their ROI on a warehouse rack inspection?

– That’s a tough question to be honest. Return on investment for safety is really dependent and individualized per application, per industry, per company. By being proactive and understanding and identifying those items, you can avoid a bad day, and bad days oftentimes can be expensive.

– Racks aren’t cheap, they’re not inexpensive things. So if you’ve got fork drivers who are doing the same thing over and over and you can look at the rack and be like, looks like your fork drivers need some training, this is what’s happening. That’s another thing that you can identify, put a training in place, and then save money on both the racks and prevent accidents, right?

– Absolutely, absolutely. And we also can identify pinch points in a warehouse or distribution center where we’re seeing at the end of an aisle or end of these three or four 10 aisles where there’s repetitive damage.

What are the risks of not inspecting warehouse racks?

– What’s the cost of a rack inspection compared to an incident not inspecting your racks

– Catastrophically different, to be honest. An employer’s responsible for creating a safe environment for their employees. And just one minor incident could cause complete operational shortages or stoppages potentially, whether it be an OSHA event or it could be an injury, it could be damaged, you know, equipment, product people.

So really the cost of a safety inspection is minuscule compared to the potential fines and stoppage or disruptions in operations.

How can I learn more about racking inspections?

– Now, hopefully, you have an idea of how much a warehouse rack inspection costs, and you can estimate approximately how much you could expect to pay for your specific facility.

If you’re ready to schedule your inspection or if you want more details, click the link in the description below. Mazzella can help with all your inspections, whether that’s pallet racking, rigging, overhead cranes, or engineered lifeline systems.

If you found this video useful, informative, entertaining, or you just feel like being friendly, hit that like button so we can get this information out to everyone who needs it. If you have a question, drop it in the comments so we can get you an answer. Remember, safe rigging is smart rigging. My name is Ben, stay safe out there.