Pallet Racking Standards in the USA v. Foreign Countries

“MADE IN USA” are the 3 words that can make all the difference.

What three words can help prevent your warehouse from collapsing? What three words can keep you from OSHA penalties and inventory loss from warehouse collapse? Most importantly, what three words keep your workers safe and productive? These three words are “Made in USA.” Beyond national pride, made in USA means that all manufacturers are held to stringent pallet racking standards in the United States. When you buy pallet rack repair parts not made in the USA, those pallet rack standards don’t apply, and you could be buying a substandard product that doesn’t meet stringent engineering specifications that the pallet rack industry is bound to uphold. This creates doubt. Can you trust a product that falls short of industry standards?

Products might look alike but are not built to the same pallet racking standards of construction.

We have all bought that discount tool. It looks too good to be true. Identical looking to its higher-priced counterparts, so you try it. Only to find that looks can be deceiving, the tool snaps, breaks bends after a few uses. Can you imagine if your racks did this, bearing all the weight they support? Foreign manufacturers can make a product look like all the others, but they have ways of cutting corners to cut costs. These shortcuts in pallet rack repair kits can lead to complete pallet rack system failure and possible loss of life. Let’s take a deeper look into what you cannot see, judging merely by surface appearances. 

Substandard Materials

Overseas manufacturers don’t have the same standards to define steel. What you cannot see is that steel can be made of different chemical components. In the USA, the mixtures of steel are tightly regulated by government and industry agencies, like AISI and SAE, that oversee the quality of steel. Foreign steel manufacturers intentionally make substandard steel at times. Imported repair kits from Asia are known to use 23,00 psi min yield steel when the US standard is 55,000 psi min yield steel for formed racking. What if a critical component of your pallet racking system designed to hold tens of thousands of pounds is made out of steel engineered to support a third of the weight? It could spell disaster. Therefore, look to US manufacturers for quality assurance in the steel used to manufacture your pallet rack repair kits. 

Substandard Welding

Once again, just because two pieces of steel are connected with a weld does not mean it will hold the tons of products you have on the racks in your warehouse. In other countries, the welding is often done by non-certified welders to make a product “look” like the real thing, with little attention to the actual engineering of the weld. Some of the welding errors that can occur are hot cracking, cold cracking, blowholes, incomplete penetration, cold-clapping, insufficient weld length, wrong weld type, just to name a few. Thousands of dollars of product, hours of potential lost warehouse time, and massive liabilities hinge on those welds.

Mac Rak Uses AWS Welders

Mac Rak, a US manufacturer, uses only AWS welders who have been certified to the industry’s highest standards. All of Mac Rak’s products have been engineered and have exacting specifications and welding methods that are strictly adhered to. 

Substandard Engineering

Many products are merely knock-offs of the products that have been exactingly engineered to industry standards. Associations like RMI and ANSI and government agencies like OSHA have specified that all products and racking systems in the USA must be engineered. Yet, again, foreign manufacturers are not held to these standards. Their products can be shipped to the USA, sold in the USA, and the liability falls on the warehouse that bought and installed these substandard parts. The foreign manufacturer is not held accountable. Often the manufacturer and country of manufacture origin are not even identified. Manufacturers like Mac Rak have 100% engineered products that strictly conform to RMI, ANSI, and OSHA standards and are made 100% in the USA, upholding and even guaranteeing all of these standards. Mac Rak is a responsible manufacturer you can trust with the lives of your employees and the operation of your warehouse. 

Bottom Line Savings

In the end, short-term thinking could jeopardize your entire operation. Experienced warehouse managers will scrutinize the country of manufacture and the manufacturers while looking for these three words that can save your operation’s bottom line “Made in USA.” The words that can keep you from OSHA penalties and inventory loss from collapse. Most importantly, what three words keep your workers safe and productive. Those three words are “Made in USA.” Beyond national pride, made in USA means something due to the industrial engineering standards to which all manufacturers are held to in the United States. When you buy pallet rack repair parts, not made in the USA, those standards don’t apply. You could be buying a substandard product that doesn’t meet stringent engineering specifications that the pallet rack industry is required to uphold.

Mac Rak Means Made in the USA

Mac Rak is proud to manufacture in the USA. Mac Rak does this intentionally to maintain high levels of quality in all levels of the process, from engineering to fabrication to installation of your pallet rack repairs and guard products.