The key to keeping a clean and well-organized work space involves giving your tools and inventory somewhere to go. A good industrial storage cabinet can provide a happy home for your tools and other items, which helps eliminate clutter and promote a clean shop environment. Here are several considerations you'll want to keep in mind as you choose the best heavy-duty storage cabinet for your shop.

Overall Weight Capacity

Having a storage cabinet won't do you any good if it lacks the capacity to hold your tools and materials. It's important to consider how much weight your shelves will need to hold, given that a storage cabinet's weight capacity can vary depending on the size, type and design of the cabinet itself.

Fortunately, it's relatively easy to find shelf capacity information for a particular cabinet. Some manufacturers prominently feature this information within their product catalogs online or in print, while others provide this information within literature provided with the cabinet or even on the cabinet itself.

Shelving Configuration

Most heavy-duty storage cabinets offer adjustable shelves to accommodate a broad range of tools and materials. Some also offer clothes bars for storing personal protective equipment (PPE) or personal clothing. Many storage cabinets also come available with drawers and storage bins for holding small tools that would otherwise be easily misplaced on larger shelving surfaces.

It's usually a good idea to choose a cabinet that offers a combination of shelves, drawers and bins. This option gives you greater flexibility when it comes to customizing cabinet spaces for wide variety of tools and materials.

Ordinary Steel vs. Stainless Steel

There's a good chance that you'll end up choosing between ordinary steel and stainless steel for your cabinets. Stainless steel offers a number of advantages that makes it a compelling choice over a comparable steel cabinet:

• Stainless steel is highly resistant to corrosion, staining and rust. This makes a stainless steel storage cabinet ideal for storing materials that would otherwise easily corrode ordinary cabinets.
• Thanks to its corrosion resistance, stainless steel storage cabinets can last longer than a comparable cabinets made from ordinary steel.
• Stainless steel storage cabinets also offer a more attractive look, which helps if aesthetics happens to be one of the many considerations in your selection.

On the other hand, ordinary high-grade steel cabinets provide a more economical answer for businesses on a budget, plus they may also be available in a wider array of styles and colors.

Visibility and Ventilation

A wide variety of heavy-duty storage cabinets offer buyers a choice between solid, see-through and ventilated doors. Your choice depends on your shop's storage needs, as well as the importance of visibility and ventilation on your operations:

• See-through doors provide excellent visibility, making it easier to find out what parts, tools and materials you have stored in a given cabinet. This increased ease of visual assessment can help speed up critical tasks, but it can also contribute to a cluttered shop appearance.
• Closed doors allow you to keep your tools out of sight, creating a cleaner, more aesthetically pleasing appearance. Excellent organization is a key requirement, however, since you won't immediately know what's inside until you open the door.
• Doors with ventilation slots are ideal for items and materials that require air flow during storage. However, the slots may clutter the cabinet's otherwise clean appearance.

Other Options to Consider

There are plenty of other options to consider when choosing your heavy-duty storage cabinet. For instance, counter-height cabinets are not only ideal for workspaces where ceiling height is a concern, but they also double as tabletops you can use to expand your work area. Heavy-duty legs give you the option of moving your storage cabinets via forklift, making relocations faster and easier.

If portability beyond the occasional cabinet relocation is a concern, you should choose a mobile cabinet. Mobile cabinets feature heavy-duty casters that provide excellent mobility on a wide variety of shop and plant surfaces.

For more information about the options for your heavy duty storage cabinets, contact a local supplier.