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Warehouse Relocation in Singapore: Decide Your Aisle Width Before You Sign the New Lease

By M&C Industrial Solution · Published August 2026 · 5 min read

Finished pallet racking installation showing aisle widths in a Singapore warehouse

By the time most companies call us about a warehouse move, the new lease is already signed and the building is already fixed — clear height, floor loading, column spacing, aisle widths, all locked in before anyone worked out whether the fleet and the racking actually fit. That's the wrong order, and it's an easy mistake to make, because none of it looks like a forklift or racking decision when you're reading a tenancy agreement.

Aisle width decides the truck

A wide aisle gives you room for a standard counterbalance forklift — flexible, but it eats floor space, because the truck needs space to turn. Narrow the aisle and a counterbalance can't turn in it at all; you need a reach truck, and narrow it further and you're into VNA (very narrow aisle) trucks that work in aisles a counterbalance couldn't get near. The aisle width in the new building isn't a detail — it decides which category of truck you're allowed to use before you've thought about racking at all.

The truck decides the racking

Once the truck is fixed, the racking follows it. A reach truck or VNA truck can lift higher and work tighter aisles than a counterbalance, which means more pallet positions in the same floor area — but only if the racking is designed for how that specific truck lifts and turns. Racking sized for a counterbalance aisle doesn't make sense with a VNA truck, and racking designed for a VNA truck won't work if you've actually got a counterbalance fleet. The two have to be specified together, not chosen separately and hoped to fit.

Why this has to happen before the layout is locked, not after

Once the lease is signed and the racking's gone in, changing your mind about aisle width means either replacing trucks that don't suit the building or re-racking a layout that's already up. Both mean redoing work that didn't need to be done twice, on a timeline that's now shorter because the move date hasn't moved. Settling aisle width, truck type and racking layout as one decision, before the new lease is final if you can manage it, avoids that entirely.

What doesn't automatically move with you

Don't assume your current fleet or your current racking simply relocates. A truck that suited a 6-metre clear height and a 3-metre aisle may not suit a new site with a 9-metre racking run and a 2.2-metre aisle. Racking pulled down at the old site may not match the new building's clear height or floor loading even before you get into the mixed-manufacturer problem that comes up at almost any dismantle. Both need checking against the new site specifically, not carried over on the assumption that a warehouse is a warehouse.

What we do differently

We price the racking and the forklift off the same layout, at the same time — because we run the fleet and design the racking under one roof, not as two separate quotes from two separate suppliers who never see each other's numbers. That means the aisle width, the truck spec and the racking depth get worked out together, once, instead of you reconciling two contractors' plans after the fact.

What to decide before you sign

Clear height and floor loading at the new site. Aisle width the building actually allows. Whether your existing trucks fit that aisle width, or need re-specing. Whether your existing racking can be reinstalled as-is, adapted, or needs replacing for the new layout. All four are one conversation, ideally before the lease is final — but even if the lease is already signed, settling them before the racking goes up still saves redoing it later.

What to do this week

If a move is on the calendar, get us in for a survey at both the site you're leaving and the site you're going to, before the layout is locked. It's a much easier job to plan the truck and the racking together up front than to unpick a mismatch after the racking is already bolted down.