8 min reading time · Sortimo Station Essen
Planning your van racking in 5 steps
From taking stock and analysing the workflow through to the installation date: how professionals plan their racking — and avoid the typical mistakes.
Step 1: Take stock — what is really on board?
The starting point is not a product choice but an inventory of the current load space. Before talking about shelves, it pays to take an honest look: what is in there — and how much of it is actually needed? Experience shows that unplanned vehicles carry 20 to 30 per cent dead material: duplicate tools, leftovers from past jobs, reserves that are never used.
List tools, machines, small parts and consumables and sort everything by how often you reach for it: daily, weekly, rarely. That list is the basis of any good plan.
In practice the quickest way is to empty the vehicle completely once and sort everything out in the yard. Anything you pick up and cannot confidently assign to a purpose belongs in the workshop stock — not in the vehicle. That hour of effort often saves a whole metre of shelving later.
Note the dimensions of the bulky items as well. A core drill, a roller stand or a dust extractor shapes the layout more than a hundred small parts do — they need a defined place, and it has to be in the plan from the start.
The three access classes
Daily: used on almost every job, belongs at grab height by the sliding door. Weekly: needed, but not constantly — can sit further back or higher up. Rarely: seasonal tools and special cases. Much of this does not belong permanently in the vehicle at all, but is taken along job by job.
Several vehicles, one standard
If you run several similar vehicles, do the stocktake once for the typical job and derive a standard from it. Identically fitted vehicles mean every fitter finds their way around every vehicle, holiday cover stops being an issue, and reordering gets simpler.
Step 2: Understand the workflow
The best racking follows the way you work: whatever is needed daily belongs at grab height by the sliding door. Heavy items low down, delicate items padded, small parts sorted into shallow drawers. Anyone working inside customer buildings should plan for portable BOXXes; anyone working at the vehicle is better served by pull-outs and work surfaces.
Walk through a typical working day in your head: where is the vehicle parked, which side is opened, how often does the fitter walk back? Every extra trip to the vehicle costs minutes that add up over the week. Racking that gets the first reach right saves more time than any additional compartment.
It also matters whether the work is mostly solo or in a team. Two fitters at the same vehicle need access from both sides and should not block each other — which argues for a two-sided layout with clear allocation rather than a single large shelf unit.
Step 3: Calculate the payload
Permissible gross weight minus kerb weight minus driver minus racking minus material — what is left is your real reserve. This is exactly where lightweight construction pays off: modern systems such as SR5 save considerable weight compared with steel shelving and create room for machines and material.
Work through that chain with real numbers before you order. Take a mid-size panel van with a permissible gross weight of 3,500 kg and a kerb weight of 2,150 kg according to the registration document: that leaves 1,350 kg of payload. Off that come driver and passenger at roughly 160 kg, two-sided racking at around 210 kg, a full tank at about 60 kg and the permanent tool kit at roughly 180 kg.
That accounts for 610 kg and leaves around 740 kg for material and machines. It sounds like plenty — until a pallet of tiles, a bag of screed or the outdoor unit of a heat pump goes in. If you skip this calculation, you find out you are overloaded at a roadside check or through worn-out suspension.
Two points are regularly overlooked. The kerb weight in the registration document applies to the base specification — optional equipment, a towbar and a roof rack come on top. And the axle loads have to work individually: a vehicle can be within its total limit and still overload the rear axle if everything heavy sits at the back.
| Item | Worked example | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Permissible gross weight | 3,500 kg | German registration document Part I, field F.2 |
| Kerb weight | − 2,150 kg | Optional equipment increases this figure |
| = Payload | 1,350 kg | The total available allowance |
| Driver and passenger | − 160 kg | Frequently forgotten altogether |
| Van racking | − 210 kg | Depends on scope and construction — we weigh your configuration in advance |
| Fuel and operating fluids | − 60 kg | Calculate with a full tank, not what is left in it |
| Permanent tool kit | − 180 kg | Machines, BOXXes, consumables |
| = Free payload | 740 kg | What remains for material and the job |
Step 4: Have it planned for your exact vehicle
Every vehicle model has its own body mounting points, wheelhouses and door apertures. Vehicle-specific planning makes sure the modules fit, the doors stay clear and the racking can be anchored crash-safely. The plan results in a fixed-price quote including an installation date.
We need three details for the plan: vehicle type, wheelbase and roof height. That combination determines the usable load space length, the height of the shelf levels and whether a second level above the wheelhouse is possible. Without them, anything said about compartments and pull-outs is speculation.
You receive the plan as a drawing — side view, plan view and parts list. Take your time with it and go through it with the fitter who will later drive the vehicle. Changes on the drawing are free; changes after installation are not.
Planning around a new vehicle that has not yet been delivered works just as well: we work from the vehicle data and align the installation date with the delivery. Ideally the racking goes in right after registration — then the vehicle is productive from its very first working day.
What makes up the cost
Four factors mainly determine the price: the size of the vehicle and therefore the number of shelf metres, the depth of the fit-out (open shelves are cheaper than pull-outs and drawers), the number of case holders and BOXXes, and special components such as a work bench, vice, inverter or long-goods tray. Installation is on top of that and depends on the scope.
Where saving pays off and where it does not
You can save on the depth of the fit-out: a shelf with dividers often does the job where a pull-out was planned. What you should not save on is the anchorage, the load securing and the basic structure — changing those afterwards takes considerable effort. Modules, by contrast, can be added at any time.
Think modular rather than all at once
If you have to keep an eye on the budget, plan the complete structure but build only the modules needed daily to begin with. Because the base system already carries the mounting points, drawers, pull-outs and case holders can be retrofitted later without any conversion work.
Step 5: Installation and handover
Depending on scope, installation takes half a working day to two working days. At handover the racking is explained, load securing is demonstrated and documented. After that the racking lives on: modules can be retrofitted, rearranged and carried over when you change vehicles.
Schedule the installation date so that the vehicle really is available — interrupting a part-finished installation overnight costs both sides time. Empty the vehicle completely beforehand; anything still inside delays the start.
After installation we recommend a settling-in period of two to three weeks. Only in real use does it become clear whether the drawer with the wall plugs is in the right place. Minor adjustments — moving dividers, adding labels, repositioning a case holder — are then quickly done and turn good racking into racking that fits.
The five most common planning mistakes
Most reworking could be avoided if five typical errors of judgement were spotted earlier. We see them again and again in consultations — regardless of the trade.
First: planning for too much. Trying to fit the entire workshop stock into the vehicle costs payload and overview. Second: deciding on price alone. Racking that has to be replaced after three years is more expensive than the well-considered solution. Third: not calculating the payload — the classic, see step 3.
Fourth: leaving the fitter out. The person who works out of the vehicle every day knows details that appear on no list. Fifth: not planning for the next vehicle. Vehicles are replaced after four to six years, good racking lasts considerably longer — plan so that a move is possible.
What comes after the fit-out
Van racking is not a closed project but a structure that grows with the business. If what you offer changes — new trades, different machines, larger teams — you do not buy again, you rebuild.
When you change vehicles the question of carrying it over comes up. Whether modules can be reused depends on the new vehicle: with the same model and wheelbase the move is usually straightforward; when you change vehicle class, the base frame and floor panel are re-adapted while drawers, pull-outs and BOXXes carry on.
So budget for the racking beyond the life of the vehicle. Treat it as a one-off purchase and you will judge it too expensive — calculate it across two vehicle generations and you get a realistic picture.