If you’re on this page, you’ve probably already identified most of the benefits of flexible industrial barriers, and you want some idea of how much they are going to cost you to fit in your factory. At Clarity, we are supplying and installing flexible industrial barriers on a weekly basis and we are meeting with hundreds of site directors and warehouse managers to look at new ways they can improve their facility with flexible industrial barriers.
By the end of this article, you will have a good idea of what the typical barrier will cost you and how much you’ll need to pay for your factory fit out.
With most things in life, when you ask the question, how much does a flexible industrial barrier cost the answer is always, it depends. It depends on the specification of the barrier that you require, it depends on the amount of barrier you require, it depends if you are happy to install the barrier yourself or whether you want the barrier installed for you. Will they need installing during a regular dayshift or will they have to be fitted on a night or weekend shift? There are many factors that affect the price and cost of a flexible industrial barrier, but hopefully this article will give you some ideas of what you are likely to pay.
How do I work out how strong my barrier needs to be?
When we are talking of flexible industrial barriers, these fall into a number of different categories, starting from a simple pedestrian barrier for segregating pedestrians from low impact pallet trucks and pump trucks, up to heavy duty barriers to segregate people from heavy machinery. The type of barrier you need can be calculated by working out what the expected maximum impact energy of a fully-loaded material handling device travelling at it to maximum speed. To help you with this, we have built a Calculator page here, simply input your heaviest materials handling vehicle in the heaviest loaded slighted Carrier and the maximum speed and you will be presented with the maximum impact energy calculation.
The other factor that should be taken into consideration is that whilst the calculation given on our impact calculation page may be high, it is unlikely in most cases that the FLT will have a direct 90° impact with the barrier. Calculate your impact energy here
What do metal barriers cost?
The cheapest type of barrier for a factory is an Armco-style steel barrier. These have been used in many factories across the UK, and indeed Europe for many years. Steel barriers serve the purpose in segregating people from machines and are, in fact, used on many motorways to divide between carriageways. Armco steel barriers will cost you around £100 per metre plus installation and is the simplest way to segregate between people and machines. With low initial outlay, the Armco barrier looks like the most cost-effective solution until the first time it is struck by a forklift truck. By its very nature, a steel barrier offers no energy absorption and transfers all of that impact energy directly to the bolts holding the barrier down. In most cases, this will cause the bolts to be ripped out the floor, and/or the barrier to be bent. On top of this, your forklift truck is likely to suffer damages.
And what do flexible barriers cost in comparison?
Flexible industrial barriers have a number of functions. They are mainly designed to stop forklift trucks and materials handling vehicles having an accident with a pedestrian, but they also act as a physical visible barrier between people and machines. Some companies are only looking to provide a physical, visible segregation or demarcation between people and machines. In which case the heavier impact resistant barriers may not be the dominant requirement for your factory and a simple pedestrian barrier would suffice.
Pedestrian barriers such as a PED 90 or HR 90 are the entry level flexible impact barrier from Clarity and other manufacturers will have their equivalent products.
The HR 90 barrier starts at around £180 per linear meter and the PED 90 is slightly more at £225 per metre. The advantage of using a PED 90 or a HR 90 barrier compared to a steel barrier, is that in the event of a low-speed impact, the barrier will instantly recover with little or no damage, the floor will remain intact and there will be no damage to the material handling vehicle.
Where a larger impact protection is needed in cases where light-loads and hand pallet trucks may impact the barrier, the LINK 120/1 is a good entry level barrier. This next level of impact protection starts at £245 per metre.
However, if you have had a FLT accident on site and you are strongly encouraged to take proactive action against this happening again, you should consider the correct impact resistant barrier you require for your needs. Where heavy-duty material handling vehicles may impact the barriers, you will likely have to move up to the next level of protection such as the LINK 150/3 which usually starts at £580 per metre.
What will it cost to get these installed?
The price of the barriers per metre will likely reduce when you order over 75m. Well, it depends. Hahaha, you see how annoying it is when people give you that answer! Again, the installation prices are affected by a few different factors; the type of product being installed, the amount of product being installed, the height or difficulty of the install and the location.
As a rough guide, for an installation of 10m of barrier in England, this would cost £2,000-£3,000, and for an installation of the same amount of barrier in Scotland or Wales, this would likely increase to £2,500-£4,000 due to the increase in travel costs. This is also likely to increase when the amount of product needed to be installed increases.
So that was a whistlestop tour! Hopefully this helped to give you a rough guide as to how much flexible impact barriers are likely to cost, so you can understand the size of your potential investment before you even reach out to us. If you want to get an accurate price for barriers in your factory, get in touch by clicking below.