Industry Update

SEMA Racking Inspection Guidance: A Plain-English Summary

A plain-English summary of SEMA pallet racking inspection guidance and the green, amber, red risk classification UK operators should understand.

2 min read 13 June 2026 Fastline Safety Team
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SEMA Racking Inspection Guidance: A Plain-English Summary

Key takeaway

SEMA's traffic-light system tells you what to do with damaged racking: green is monitor, amber is action within four weeks, red means offload and isolate immediately.

Who it's for

PRRS inspectors, facilities managers and H&S leads.

What SEMA Guidance Covers

The Storage Equipment Manufacturers' Association (SEMA) publishes the UK's most widely used guidance on pallet racking inspection. It sets out who should inspect racking, how often, and how to classify and act on damage. It underpins what HSE and PUWER expect of operators.

The Green, Amber, Red System

  • Green: damage within safe limits, record and monitor at the next inspection
  • Amber: damage that needs action, isolate the load and repair within four weeks
  • Red: serious damage, offload and isolate immediately and replace before reuse

For how often these inspections should happen and who can carry them out, read our racking inspection frequency insight.

Build It Into A Planned Programme

Inspection findings are most useful when they feed a planned schedule rather than reactive fixes. That is the foundation of warehouse asset management and longer-term lifecycle planning for warehouse assets.

Turn inspections into a planned safety programme

Talk to our team about protecting and planning your racking and warehouse assets.

Request a site survey

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