Carton Flow Rack Systems in Chicago, IL

Carton flow rack is built for the picker, not the pallet. Chicagoland's e-commerce fulfillment and grocery distribution sectors - in the big boxes of Romeoville and Bolingbrook, the O'Hare submarket around Elk Grove Village, and the I-90 corridor through Schaumburg and Elgin - run case-pick operations where walking time is the enemy. Cases sit on inclined wheel beds, so every time a picker takes one, the next slides forward to the same spot.

It's the right system when picking is by the case or the each, not the pallet, and when enough SKUs need a dedicated face that static shelving turns into a maintenance problem. Most buildings here run it in the lower levels of a bay with reserve pallets stacked above, so one footprint handles both active picking and overflow.

We size wheel beds and lane widths to your case dimensions, pick rate, and SKU count, and show where the fastest movers should sit in the bay.

The project starts with the case list: dimensions, weight, whether the carton bottom is stiff or soft, and picks per SKU per day. Those numbers decide wheel bed style, lane width, and how much face each SKU is worth giving up.

From there we lay out the bay - how many flow levels, at what incline, and what sits above them. In most designs, the fastest movers get the golden zone at waist height, slower SKUs move to the upper or lower levels, and reserve pallets stack overhead in the same footprint.

The quote itemizes frames, beams, wheel bed or track, lane dividers, front stops, and shelf-level accessories, with the layout showing lane assignments by SKU. Installation sets the incline, tests case travel with your actual cartons, and adjusts before the line goes live.

The payoff is a pick line where cases present themselves, restocking stays out of the way, and lane widths can be reset whenever SKUs come and go.

E-commerce fulfillment transformed the I-55 and I-80 corridor in Will County, and the big-box buildings in Romeoville, Bolingbrook, Joliet, and Elwood run case-pick lines where every second of picker travel is measured. Carton flow is how those operations give every active SKU a fixed, always-stocked face.

Grocery and consumer goods distribution adds a second base of demand - from the southwest side near Bedford Park and Cicero to the I-90 Jane Addams corridor through Schaumburg and Elgin, where auto parts, MRO, and retail replenishment operations pick cases all day. Many of these buildings are older multi-tenant spaces with lower clear heights, which is exactly where combining carton flow below with pallet reserve above pays off.

Recent Installations

A sample of racking projects completed across the region.

Carton Flow Questions From Chicago Operations

Where We Work

Located in Chicago, we serve the entire Chicagoland area with industrial pallet racks and warehouse storage solutions.