Datum MobileTrak5 Mobile Filing Systems

Why a filing conversion is not the same project as a shelving conversion

Most high-density projects are described in square feet. Filing projects are not: they are measured in filing inches, and that unit changes every decision. A filing inch is simply one inch of horizontal shelf or drawer run occupied by upright files. It is a definitional unit, which is why it is so useful — a 42-inch-wide shelf level provides 42 filing inches, whether the files sitting in it are thick or thin.

The consequence is that filing rooms live or die on shelf pitch rather than shelf depth. Letter-size files are shallower than most industrial shelving assumes, so a carriage designed for cartons wastes depth in a file room. Conversely, filing is dense and heavy: a fully loaded run of files puts far more weight per foot on a carriage than a run of half-empty archive boxes, which pushes the drive selection toward mechanical or powered assist sooner than people expect.

Datum’s MobileTrak platform handles this by treating the carriage as a chassis and the filing hardware as the payload. Datum documents MobileTrak as able to accommodate any Datum shelving solution, explicitly including lateral files alongside 4Post, Stak-N-Lok, VuStak, ThinStak and weapon cabinets, and notes that systems can be customised. In practice that means the same rails and drive can carry lateral file frames in one bay and shelf filing in the next.

Filing arithmetic: working out what your room can hold

Here is the calculation we actually run, written out so you can check ours or run your own before anyone quotes. Every step is arithmetic or measurement. None of it is a manufacturer rating, and it deliberately stops where engineering begins.

1. Count today’s filing inches. For shelf filing, multiply the usable width of one shelf level by the number of levels per section, then by the number of sections. For lateral cabinets, multiply the usable drawer width by the number of drawers. Add them together. That single number is your baseline, and it is almost always different from what the records team believes it is.

2. Add retention growth. Filing volume is driven by your retention schedule, not by office headcount. Take the annual intake in filing inches, subtract the annual destruction under the schedule, and project forward over the life you want from the room. If the schedule is not being enforced, fix that before buying storage — it is the cheapest capacity you will ever find.

3. Model the carriage layout. Along the travel direction, the bank consumes the summed depth of the carriages, plus each aisle you keep open, plus rail run-out and the ramp at the access end. Across the travel direction, carriage length is limited by the model (Datum documents up to 288 inches for MobileTrak3 and up to 612 inches for MobileTrak550) and by the room itself.

4. Subtract the real-world losses. Sprinkler clearance, lighting, the reach height of your shortest user, columns, a door that swings into the bank, and any aisle you must keep permanently open for simultaneous users. Each of these removes filing inches from the theoretical maximum, and pretending otherwise is how file rooms end up 10 percent short on day one.

Handles, aisle locks and day-to-day operation

The hardware a user touches every day matters more to the success of a file room than any headline specification. Datum documents three handle options and a set of mechanical features that together define how the room behaves.

• Three handle options: a handle with red aisle indicator, a lockable crank handle, and a manual pull handle
• Push-button aisle locks that prevent carriage movement while the aisle is in use
• A locking crank handle that provides security for the system
• Carriage and rails documented as providing smooth movement when opening and closing aisles
• An enclosed drive mechanism with an external adjustable chain tensioner, so adjustments can be made without removing the end panel

That last item sounds minor and is not. Chain tension is the most common maintenance touch point on a mechanically assisted system. If tensioning requires dismantling an end panel, it gets deferred, and deferred tension adjustment is how carriages start to feel heavy. An external adjuster turns a service call into a five-minute task.

The red aisle indicator handle is worth specifying in any shared file room. It gives an at-a-glance signal that an aisle is occupied, which combined with the push-button aisle lock is the practical answer to the most common concern people raise about mobile filing: that someone will close an aisle while a colleague is inside it. Hardware helps, but it does not replace training and a written aisle rule, and we cover both at handover.

End panels, finishes and making the room look intentional

In a records room nobody sees, end panels are functional. In a law office, a clinic corridor or a university department, they are the whole visual impression of the project. Datum documents that all MobileTrak systems are available with a selection of end panel configurations, ranging from a simple drive box cover through one-piece, two-piece, three-piece and four-piece end panels, and that end panels can be made from melamine, laminate or steel. A powder coat finish is documented for the system.

• Drive box cover only, where the bank is in a back-of-house room and budget goes into capacity instead
• One-piece panels for a clean, flat face in a public-facing space
• Two, three and four-piece panels where panel scale needs to match surrounding joinery
• Melamine or laminate to coordinate with existing casework; steel where durability outranks appearance
• Perforated steel where the stored material benefits from air movement

One practical note on specifying finishes: match them to something physical in the room, not to a swatch on a screen. We get finish samples in front of the people signing off, because a laminate that looks close in a PDF can look wrong beside real casework, and end panels are not the part of the system you want to re-order.

How a MobileTrak filing project runs

The step most often shortened is the survey, and it is the one we refuse to shorten. Rail layout depends on the room as built, not the room as drawn. We have yet to survey a file room where the drawing and the tape measure agreed completely.

The step most often forgotten is the last one. Filing rooms are living systems: intake continues, destruction happens on a schedule, and departments reorganise. A design that leaves no spare levels and no path to add a carriage is a design that will be full within a year of handover. We plan the expansion path at design stage and write it down.