Herochu Industrial Sheet-Metal Storage Systems
Start at $2,999 | CE, UE, ISO 9001 | Built-to-fit in 10 days
Stop renting air you can’t use and stop paying a $150 000 laser to stare at the ceiling. One floor stack, one misplaced gauge, one “I-think-it’s-under-there” search and you’ve burned more margin than the rack costs. Herochu flips the first fifty feet of your process on its side—literally—so the right sheet meets the torch in under ninety seconds, scratch-free, every time.
The stand-still you never budget for
A 4 kW fiber laser earns about $4 every minute it fires. While an operator digs through a leaning tower of 16 ga, that minute hand spins for nothing. Ten retrievals a shift, fifteen minutes each, 250 work days: that is 6 250 lost minutes—$25 000 in vaporised revenue—before you even talk about scrap, overtime, or the chiropractor bill. Herochu’s drawer-based system hands the sheet to the crane while the previous part is still glowing on the slats, so the beam stays busy and the quotation you gave the customer still has oxygen in it.
A drawer is faster than a forklift ballet
Each module is a vertical column of roll-out cradles. One tug extends a full 1 220 mm, locking positively at 95 % so it cannot drift. The face of the bundle is completely exposed; no second forklift needed to “fan” the stack, no helper steadying the top sheet while someone else pries the bottom. A single operator—gloves, safety glasses, radio remote—lowers the vacuum beam, picks, and closes. Total elapsed time: 78 seconds average across 312 timed cycles in Ohio job-shop conditions.
Scratch the scratch, scrap the scrap
Floor weight may look harmless, but grit between sheets turns into 400-grit sandpaper under 6 000 lb. One circular mark can condemn a cosmetic panel; one warped bottom sheet becomes a weekend of re-cutting. Herochu drawers carry the load on two 40 × 40 mm cold-rolled rails, 3 mm wall, so nothing touches the face of the sheet below it. A replaceable UHMW strip acts as a dielectric buffer: no galvanic tattoo when stainless kisses mild steel, no rust bloom when the shop humidity spikes.
Density that pays the rent twice
A typical 10 × 10 ft corner—enough for one sloppy 5-high pile—accepts a 15-drawer Herochu tower. Each drawer shoulders 3 000 lb. That is 45 000 lb of live inventory where you used to park 12 000 lb, freeing 75 sq ft for a second machine, a robot table, or simply aisle space that keeps OSHA happy. At $7 per square foot, the recovered floor alone saves $525 a year; add the laser uptime and most towers cash-flow in nine months.
Built like a press-brake, not a bread rack
Frames are 4 mm Q355B, laser-cut, robot-welded, then baked in a 180 °C polyester powder finish rated for 1 000-hour salt-spray. Bearings are sealed 6204-2RS, rated for 50 000 cycles—about 25 years in two-shift operation. Drawers adjust on 50 mm pitch; move one, ten, or all of them in thirty minutes with an Allen key and a socket. Need 13 ft-6 in clear for architectural panels? We punch the column one slot longer and ship the same week—no change-order horror stories.
Safety that silences the safety manager
Positive-locking detents stop extension at 95 % and retraction at 100 %—no runaway drawer when the floor shakes. A 50 mm front lip plus optional back-stop mesh satisfies ANSI MH16.3 without custom fabrication. Base plates arrive pre-slotted for ¾-in wedge anchors and laser-etched with torque values so the night shift cannot over-tighten and banana the frame. Clear aisles mean forklifts drive predictably, near-miss reports drop, and experience-mod rates follow.
From “I think” to “I scanned”
Stick a barcode label on each drawer face; scan it with the same tablet that nests your parts. ERP now knows 11 ga 304 #4 lives in drawer 7, 48 × 120 in, 47 sheets, 18 remnant. When the nest calls for that gauge, the operator walks straight to the drawer—no handwritten tally, no prayer. One fabricator cut inventory variance from 4 % to 0.6 % in the first full month after install.
Installation that respects the weekend
Tower sections arrive pre-bolted; a two-person crew can assemble a 15-drawer unit in under two hours using a scissor lift and the QR-code video we shot in a real shop. No torch, no tag-lines, no third-party rigger. If headcount is tight, our certified installers will finish during a single swing shift and leave the laser running.
Real numbers, real shops
Mid-Atlantic job shop – 12-drawer tower feeding a 3 kW Bystronic. Retrieval time dropped from 14 min to 1.5 min; laser uptime rose 11 %, adding $62 000 annual margin.
Gulf Coast architectural fabricator – hot-dip-galvanised frame, 20 drawers, 10 ft sheets. Scratch claims fell from 3 % to 0.2 %; customer returned with a five-year, $2.3 M contract.
Great Lakes HVAC supplier – two 25-drawer towers flanking a punch/laser combo. Recovered 180 sq ft, installed second robot welder, increased throughput 22 % without new roof or slab.
Sustainability you can quote in a proposal
Steel is 97 % recycled content; powder-coat overspray is captured and re-used. By storing 3× more material in the same envelope you heat, cool, and light less air—typically 6 % HVAC savings. When you move, unbolt and take the asset with you; zero demolition, zero landfill.
Certifications that cross oceans
- EN 1090-2 EXC2 structural compliance
- Welds to ISO 3834-2, full MTC traceability
- CE marked, Declaration of Performance included
- Seismic calculations PE-stamped for all 50 states and Canada
Price & lead time
15-drawer starter tower, 12 ft H × 8 ft L, 3 000 lb per drawer: $2,999
Add-on bay: $2,349
Extra drawer cassette: $179
Freight to most US/CA hubs: $195–$295
Standard lead time: 12 business days; 48-hour expedite available.
Warranty: 10 years structural, 5 years powder-coat, lifetime phone support.
The next move is a sketch away
Upload a floor plan or napkin doodle at Herochu.com and receive a 3-D layout, weight load, and freight quote in under an hour. Or call 1-800-HEROCHU and talk to an engineer who still has grinding dust in his boots. Either way, stop paying rent to a pile of sheet metal and start letting that laser earn its keep—minute after minute, shift after shift.
