Clean supply room shelving holding packaged trays, bins and wrapped items

Sterile processing storage is the equipment side of an SPD: the shelving, basket modules, bins and cart staging that hold containers, wrapped trays and consumables between processing and the point of use. This page covers the systems and how to configure them. The workflow — soiled receiving through decontamination, prep and pack, cooling and dispatch — is on our sterile processing department storage planning page. Labs USA specifies and supplies the storage and coordinates installation; Quantum Medical manufactures the shelving families described here.

Clean storage shelving filled with wrapped packs and packaged clinical supplies
1set per location, never stacked
18–24 inusual shelf depths in clean storage
Freelayout and needs assessment
Phasedinstalls for departments that cannot close
Contents, dating, handling and the criteria your storage has to satisfy are set by your department and your infection prevention team. We specify equipment to the criteria you give us. We make no claims about what any product does to the items stored inside it.

What sterile processing storage has to do

Clean storage has one hard requirement that ordinary shelving ignores: everything must be pickable without moving anything else.

Ordinary store rooms tolerate stacking. Clean storage does not, because the act of unstacking is handling, and handling is what your department is trying to minimise. That single requirement drives most of the specification:

One location per set. Enough labelled locations that even a monthly set has a home of its own. Once two sets share a location, one of them gets moved every time the other is picked.

Shelf pitch from your tallest container. Not from the catalogue. Measure the tallest rigid container you actually run, add clearance for lifting it out flat, and set the pitch from that. Pitch then decides how many shelves fit the height you have, which decides how many units the room needs.

Visibility. Open wire lets light through and lets staff read a label without pulling anything forward. It is the default for clean storage for exactly that reason.

A bottom shelf, not the floor. Nothing on the floor, and a bottom shelf set high enough that the room can be cleaned underneath it.

Open wire shelving holding stacks of blue wrapped trays

Everything below is a way of satisfying those four points in a real room with a real ceiling height and a real door in the wrong place.

Sterile processing storage systems we supply

A typical SPD clean storage room uses three or four of these together.

Close view of wire shelves holding blue wrapped packs on one levelOpen wire shelvingThe default for wrapped trays and containers: light and air pass through, labels stay readable, and shelf pitch is adjustable on site.
Four-shelf all-polymer shelving unit with vented shelf platesAll-polymer shelvingVented or solid polymer shelf plates on polymer posts, for humid areas and for shelves that come out to be washed.
Four-shelf green epoxy wire shelving unit for humid storage areasCoated and stainless shelvingEpoxy-coated and 304 stainless families where the room is wet, humid or cleaned aggressively.
Shelving unit of clear bins holding peel packs and small packaged itemsBin systems for peel packsFront-opening and clear bins so small packs stand on edge and can be picked one at a time instead of being riffled through.
Two mesh-enclosed wheeled units holding packaged supplies in a corridorCase cart and container stagingEnclosed and mesh-panelled wheeled units, plus the floor footprint that loaded carts actually need.
Steel cabinet fitted with rows of clear tilt-out bins for small consumablesEnclosed cabinets and bin cabinetsClosed storage where the department wants items shut away rather than on open shelving.

Scope and drying cabinets are a specialist category with their own airflow and hanging requirements. We handle them as part of an endoscopy project rather than as a shelving line item — see endoscopy storage and medical storage cabinets, and talk to us before specifying one.

Choosing the shelf: wire, solid or vented polymer

Shelf type Use it when Watch out for
Open wire Wrapped trays, containers, boxed stock. Default for clean storage. Small or soft items can sag or slip through — add an inlay mat or a shallow bin.
Solid shelf or shelf plate Small items, anything that must not fall through, the bottom shelf of a run. Nothing passes through the shelf, so spills sit on it and it needs wiping down.
Vented polymer plate Humid rooms, and where shelves come out to be cleaned. The manufacturer describes its polymer shelf plates as removable and dishwasher safe. Different capacity and pitch behaviour from wire — confirm on the quote.
Basket or drawer module Deep units picked by hand: the basket comes out on glides so the back is reachable. Costs shelf pitch. Fewer levels per unit than flat shelves.
Bin on a shelf Peel packs and small consumables, so each line has its own labelled front. Bins hide what is behind them — label the location, not the bin.

Finish follows the room, not the department

SPD contains several different environments in one suite: a wet decontamination side, a dry prep and pack side, and clean storage that is somewhere in between. Finish should be chosen per room, not per department. The manufacturer rates chrome and galvanized shelving for dry storage only, and lists epoxy-coated, 304 stainless electropolish and all-polymer shelving as suitable for wet, cooler and freezer environments. Warranty terms differ by finish and are confirmed on the quote.

In practice that means the decontamination side is usually coated, stainless or polymer, and the clean side can be chrome if the room is genuinely dry. If the room is steam-cleaned or wet-mopped hard, it is not dry.

Detail of a vented shelf surface that lets air pass through the shelf

Published specifications: the manufacturer’s Millenia all-polymer range is listed at 18, 21 and 24 in depths, 24 to 72 in lengths and post heights from 14 to 96 in, with vented or solid shelf plates and evenly distributed capacities of 1,000 lb per shelf and 2,000 lb per unit; a reinforcement stand is recommended at 54 in and longer, and the range is described by the manufacturer as patent pending. Its wire and solid families are published at up to 800 lb per shelf depending on family and finish. We confirm the numbers that apply to your build on the quote.

Configuring a clean storage room

1Count the locations you needNumber of sets and containers held, plus loaners and consignment, plus growth. This is the number that sizes the room.
2Measure the tallest containerShelf pitch comes from it. Everything else follows pitch.
3Set the depthDeep enough for the container footprint, no deeper: depth you cannot reach becomes a place things get lost.
4Draw the cart footprintsLoaded case carts waiting to be built and waiting to go are floor, not shelving. Draw them before the shelving is drawn.
5Decide static or high-densityIf the room is full and staying, a compacting bank buys floor back. If several people pick at once, keep it static.
6Label the locationsFixed location labels on the shelf edge, not on the item. Colour by category if it helps staff find a group fast.

Case carts need floor, not shelves

The most common mistake we see in an SPD storage plan is filling the room with shelving and leaving nowhere to park loaded carts. Carts arrive in bursts and need three footprints: inbound, waiting to be built, and built and waiting to go. Corridors are not one of them. Give us cart counts and cart dimensions with the room dimensions and we will draw the parking before the shelving.

Growth and loaners

Loaner and consignment trays arrive unannounced and in unpredictable sizes. A department with no designated loaner area absorbs them into clean storage, which then overflows into the aisle. A small labelled holding area protects the rest of the room. Plan capacity with headroom: a clean storage room that is exactly full on day one is full and stacking by month three.

Loaded mobile wire unit staged in a clinical store room beside shelving

Where the room is full and staying put, look at high-density storage and hospital mobile shelving before you look at a bigger room. For bulk, heavy or deep loads outside clean storage, the hospital modular rack system is the better answer.

Peel packs, consumables and small items

Small packaged items behave nothing like trays. They are light, they are similar-looking, they arrive in cartons, and on a flat shelf they end up in a pile that gets riffled through every time someone looks for one. Bins solve it by standing items on edge with a labelled front, so a pick is one item and not a handful.

The manufacturer’s plastic bin range covers shelf bins in several heights, hopper bins, dividable containers and tilt-out bins, with optional dividers, clear windows and label holders. Bins are also where colour coding earns its keep: one colour per category lets staff find the right group from across the room. Bin colours are usually specified one colour per unit, so decide the scheme before the order.

At the bench, wall-mounted bin rails and tilt-bin units put consumables within reach of the person assembling, which is the single highest-value change we make in most existing prep and pack areas — it is also the cheapest.

Shelving bay mixing bins of small items with wrapped packs above
Shelving filled with colour-coded plastic shelf bins holding small itemsShelf bins and dividersColour-coded bins with optional dividers so one bin holds several lines without mixing them.
Wall-mounted tilt bin unit holding small packaged consumables at bench heightBench and wall bin railsConsumables at the point of assembly instead of in a store room down the corridor.
Blue plastic tote holding flat wrapped packs ready to moveTotes and containersStackable totes for moving packs between areas and for repacking bulk cartons on arrival.

Areas this storage serves

Shelving run holding blue wrapped packs and boxed supplies in clean storageClean storageSets and containers held until needed, one location each. Workflow context on the SPD planning page.
Clean store room with a long shelving run holding wrapped and boxed stockPrep and packConsumables, wrap, indicators and containers within reach of the bench.
Polymer cart with divided upright trays holding packaged itemsOR cores and sub-sterile roomsSmall, dense storage close to the room. See operating room storage.
Five-shelf all-polymer shelving unit suited to wet processing areasDecontaminationCoated, stainless or polymer shelving for consumables and baskets in a wet environment.
Clear stacking totes holding packaged supplies broken out of bulk cartonsReceiving and repackBulk cartons broken down into totes and bins before they reach clean storage. See central supply.
Rack of small clear bins with a gloved hand picking one packaged itemProcedure and endoscopy areasSmall packaged items and scope-related consumables, plus specialist cabinets by project.

Plan the room in the Design Center

The Healthcare Storage Design Center holds our planning tools, including the High-Density Storage Calculator, so you can test depths, shelf pitch and aisle widths against your own room before you speak to anyone. Outputs are planning estimates; final layouts and specifications are reviewed by us and dimensions are field-verified.

Sterile processing storage in detail

Each family has its own page with configuration guidance and the published specifications where the manufacturer publishes them. These pages describe transport, staging and workflow only.

Resources

Manufacturer literature for the wire, polymer, Millenia and plastic bin ranges on this page comes with the quote on request.

Sterile processing storage FAQs

What shelving is used for clean storage in an SPD?
Open wire shelving is the usual default, because light and air pass through and labels stay readable without pulling anything forward. Polymer, epoxy-coated and 304 stainless families are used where the room is humid or cleaned hard. The choice is driven by the room and by what you store, and the finish sets the warranty terms.
How do we work out how much clean storage we need?
Count locations, not square feet. Number of sets and containers held, plus loaners and consignment, plus growth headroom; then shelf pitch from your tallest container, then depth. That gives a unit count and a floor area, and it is the calculation we do with you for free.
Can trays be stacked to fit more in?
Stacking is what a clean storage layout exists to avoid, because getting to the bottom item means handling everything above it. If the room only works when stacked, it needs more locations — usually via a compacting or mobile bank rather than a bigger room.
Does this page cover sterilizers, washers or drying cabinets?
No. We supply storage: shelving, basket modules, bins, cabinets and cart staging. Scope and drying cabinets are handled as part of an endoscopy project because of their airflow and hanging requirements. Talk to us before specifying one.
What is the difference between this page and your SPD department page?
This page is the product hub — systems, shelf types, finishes and configuration. The department page covers workflow: soiled receiving, decontamination, prep and pack, cooling, clean storage and case cart flow. They are meant to be read together and we deliberately do not repeat one on the other.
Will you say whether a product meets our standards or survey criteria?
We will design to criteria you give us, and we will tell you what the manufacturer publishes about materials, dimensions and load capacity. We do not interpret standards or survey criteria, and we make no claims about what a product does to the items stored in it. That judgement sits with your department and your infection prevention team.
Can you install without closing the department?
Usually, yes. We phase the work: build the new storage in one part of the room, move stock across, then convert the rest. Delivery and installation are coordinated by us.

Get your clean storage laid out and quoted

Send the room, the set and container counts and your cart numbers. You get a layout, a location count and a quote, with delivery and installation coordinated by us.