Modular Drawer Storage Systems in India: Alkon Multi System, AMSN and AMSEX Cabinets
Alkon's storage systems are the closed half of the catalogue. An open bin gives you speed and a clear sight of stock; a drawer gives you an enclosed compartment, a flat labelling face and, where it matters, a key. This page covers Modular Drawer Storage Systems in India at the level a stores, maintenance, records or production manager actually has to work at: the Multi System cabinet and its four interchangeable drawer heights, the AMSN and Executive AMSEX modular systems with their locks and colour ranges, utility containers and drawer containers, crash cart components for hospital furniture manufacturers, Rounda rotary storage, the Roundafile, Poly Bins and Rails, the Multy Display Board and the Tool Tray. It also sets out how to choose a drawer height from the parts or papers you actually hold, and when a closed lockable drawer is the right answer instead of an open bin.
What is in the Alkon storage systems range
The storage systems category is where Alkon stops being a bin maker and becomes a cabinet maker. It holds the Multi System cabinets, the Modular Systems coded AMSN, the Executive Modular Systems coded AMSEX, the Rounda Storage Unit, the Roundafile and the crash cart components supplied to hospital furniture manufacturers. Alongside it sits a small group of other products that belong to the same thinking: drawer containers for tool cabinet drawers, Poly Bins and Rails, the Multy Display Board and the Tool Tray. Shreeram Metafusion Engineers Pvt. Ltd. has been an authorised stockist and supplier of ALKON Plastics Pvt. Ltd. for over thirty years, and we supply this range from Sector 17, Vashi, Navi Mumbai.
What separates these items from the bin families is enclosure. A Supra, Hippo, Bull, Rhino Tuff, Tote or Mammoth bin is designed so a hand can go in from the front without opening anything. A Multi System or AMSEX drawer is designed so that nothing goes in or out until somebody pulls it, and in the locking versions, until somebody with a key pulls it. That single difference changes what the product is good at. It protects contents from dust, swarf and oil mist, it stops small flat parts migrating between neighbouring positions, it gives you a clean rectangular label face, and it lets you keep controlled items under a lock without buying a steel almirah.
The material differs too, and this is worth knowing before you specify. The Multi System cabinets, the AMSN and AMSEX modular systems, the drawer containers and the Tool Tray are moulded in High Impact Polystyrene. The bin ranges are moulded polypropylene copolymer with a service range of minus 10 degrees C to plus 70 degrees C. Do not carry that temperature figure across to the drawer cabinets by assumption. If your intended location has a heat source nearby, or if the drawers will be exposed to solvents or cleaning chemicals, ask us for the material data against the exact item code instead of taking a general answer.
You can see the full list, with the individual product pages and photographs, in the Alkon storage systems range on this site. In practice these items are rarely ordered on their own. A records room takes a Roundafile and a stack of lockable cabinets, a service workshop takes drawer cabinets at the bench and open bins in the racks behind it, and a hospital furniture manufacturer takes crash cart rails, channels and bins as a repeating bill of material. Planning them in one exercise, and ordering them on one purchase order, saves a great deal of follow-up later.
The Multi System cabinet: one shell, four drawer heights
The Multi System is the simplest way to understand how the whole drawer family works. There is one cabinet shell, measuring 410 mm deep by 310 mm wide by 333 mm high externally, and there are four interchangeable drawer sizes that fit it. The published configurations are MS 12L with twelve D1 drawers, MS 6L with six D2 drawers, MS 4L with four D3 drawers, MS 3L with three D4 drawers, and MS 3111L, a mixed cabinet. The L in the code indicates the locking version; ALKON offers the cabinets with or without a central locking system, so state clearly on the enquiry which one you want rather than assuming the lock is standard.
The four drawers share one plan area and differ only in height. Internally they measure 360 mm deep by 270 mm wide, with heights of 16 mm for D1, 39 mm for D2, 62 mm for D3 and 87 mm for D4. Because the plan area never changes, the drawers are interchangeable within the shell, and the counts follow from the heights: twelve shallow, six medium, four deep, three deepest. That is the practical meaning of the ratio ALKON quotes for the modular systems, 1 to 2 to 3 to 4. A cabinet you buy today as twelve shallow drawers can be reconfigured later without replacing the shell, provided you order the drawers to match.
Cabinets can be interlocked side by side or stacked one on top of the other, which is what makes the system modular rather than merely a cupboard. ALKON describes the Multi System as being for files, documents, papers and office stationery, and the cabinets and drawers are supplied in Computer Light Grey. Take one procurement precaution on colour: ALKON's own catalogue note says the colours shown in printed and on-screen images are similar rather than exact. If the cabinet has to sit in a customer-facing area or match existing furniture, ask us to show you a physical sample before the order goes in.
There is a quiet arithmetic point in the drawer heights that decides more than people expect. Internally, a D1 drawer holds about 1.56 litres, a D2 about 3.79 litres, a D3 about 6.03 litres and a D4 about 8.46 litres. Multiply by the drawer count and the whole cabinet holds roughly 18.7 litres as MS 12L, 22.7 litres as MS 6L, 24.1 litres as MS 4L and 25.4 litres as MS 3L. In other words, the shallow configuration gives you the most separate part numbers but the least total volume, and the deep configuration gives you the reverse. Decide which of those two things your store is actually short of.
Choosing a drawer height from what you store
The rule is simple and it is broken constantly: size the drawer to the tallest item that has to lie in it, plus clearance, not to the average item. A drawer of terminals and ferrules is decided by the one cable tie somebody insists on keeping there. The measurement to take is the height of the item in its resting position, and the clearance to allow is enough that the drawer closes without the operator pressing down on the contents. A drawer that has to be pressed shut will be left open within a fortnight, and once it is left open, every advantage the drawer had over an open bin has been surrendered.
D1 at 16 mm internal is a paper and flat-goods drawer. It takes forms, loose sheets, printed labels, index cards, drawing prints folded to size, shims, flat gaskets, washers lying flat, blades, sealing rings and thin flat-packed spares. It is also the right home for documents in a records room where the alternative is a box file that nobody returns. D2 at 39 mm is the general-purpose small parts drawer: screws, nuts, ferrules, crimp lugs, fuses, small relays, O-rings, cable markers, rubber feet, small brackets and most of a maintenance consumables list.
D3 at 62 mm and D4 at 87 mm are the drawers for items with real height. D3 suits cable glands, small connectors, bushes, contact blocks, bearings up to a modest size, tools, and taped spools. D4 suits bottles and tubes that lie down, hand tools with handles, spray nozzles, larger connectors, and any part you would otherwise put in a small open bin. Be exact here: a reagent bottle 100 mm tall will not stand in an 87 mm drawer, and that discovery is usually made after the cabinet has been delivered and the labels printed. Measure the tallest actual item and write the figure on the enquiry.
One more criterion decides between two heights that both fit: replenishment interval. Set the holding quantity as what is consumed between two replenishment visits, plus a margin, and then pick the smallest drawer that holds it comfortably. Choosing a taller drawer than you need is not free, because every step up removes drawer positions from the cabinet. Going from D1 to D2 halves the number of part numbers that cabinet can carry. In a store that is short of part numbers rather than short of volume, that is the most expensive decision on the order.
- D1, 16 mm internal: papers, forms, labels, shims, flat gaskets, washers, blades, thin flat spares.
- D2, 39 mm internal: screws, nuts, ferrules, lugs, fuses, O-rings, markers, small brackets.
- D3, 62 mm internal: glands, bushes, contact blocks, small bearings, taped spools, hand tools.
- D4, 87 mm internal: bottles and tubes laid flat, larger connectors, handled tools, bulkier spares.
- Always measure the tallest item in its resting position, then add closing clearance.
Modular Systems AMSN and Executive Modular Systems AMSEX
The Modular Systems, coded AMSN, and the Executive Modular Systems, coded AMSEX, are the same idea as the Multi System expressed as a filing system. ALKON describes them as plastic filing systems based on standard modules that can be interlocked and stacked one on top of another, built on four drawer sizes interchangeable in the ratio 1 to 2 to 3 to 4, and moulded in High Impact Polystyrene. The important difference from the Multi System line is that all AMSN and AMSEX cabinets are supplied with a central locking system. If the location needs a key as a matter of policy rather than preference, these are the codes to quote against.
The configurations mirror the drawer counts you would expect. AMSN 12L and AMSEX 12L carry twelve shallow drawers at 16 mm internal height, coded AD1 and AD1 EX. The six-drawer cabinets carry the 39 mm drawers, AD2 and AD2 EX. The four-drawer cabinets carry the 62 mm drawers, AD3 and AD3 EX, and the three-drawer cabinets carry the 87 mm drawers, AD4 and AD4 EX. Every drawer in both ranges is 360 mm deep by 270 mm wide internally, exactly as in the Multi System. When the quotation comes back, check that the drawer code printed against each line matches the height you sized for, because the number in the cabinet code is the drawer count and not the drawer type.
Colour is where the two ranges genuinely diverge, and it is more useful than it first appears. The AMSN range is offered in Brown, Dark Grey, Blue and Green. The Executive AMSEX range is offered in Beige, Brown, Grey, Dark Grey, Light Blue and Green. A wider palette lets you use colour as a control device rather than decoration. A plant can, for example, keep blue cabinets for production consumables, green for quality department retains and dark grey for finance records, so that a cabinet standing in the wrong room announces itself across the floor. ALKON lists the applications as offices, hospitals, homes, electronics, engineering and textile industries, which is a fair description of where the range actually turns up.
Mixed-height cabinets: the 3111L configurations
Real part lists are not uniform, and the mixed cabinets exist for that reason. The AMSEX MIX-L 3111L is specified as a modular system with three AD1 drawers, one AD3 drawer and one AD4 drawer, all with locks. The AMSN MIX-L 3111L and the Multi System MS 3111L are the mixed-height cabinets in their ranges; confirm the exact drawer mix with us before ordering. In the AMSEX version the catalogue lists three of the shallowest drawers, then one 62 mm drawer and one 87 mm drawer, in one lockable shell. It is the configuration to reach for when a single location has to hold both paperwork and objects, which is most locations once you look at them honestly.
A worked example makes the choice concrete. Take a plant maintenance office in an engineering unit near Chakan, Pune. The cabinet at the supervisor's desk has to hold work permits and blank job cards, the shift handover register sheets, spare gaskets and O-rings for the two most troublesome pumps, a set of assorted fasteners, and two spare proximity sensors in their boxes. A twelve-drawer cabinet would give plenty of positions but the sensor boxes would not fit any of them. A three-drawer cabinet would swallow the sensors and leave the paperwork loose. The 3111L takes the permits, cards and register sheets in the three shallow drawers, the fasteners and seals in the 62 mm drawer, and the boxed sensors in the 87 mm drawer, in one lockable shell.
The discipline that makes a mixed cabinet work is deciding the allocation before delivery and writing it down. Because every drawer in the range shares the same 360 by 270 mm plan, it is trivially easy to slide a drawer from one cabinet into another during a rearrangement, and equally easy to lose track of what belongs where. Fix the drawer allocation on paper at the planning stage, print the labels from that same list, and make it a rule that no drawer moves between cabinets without its label being reprinted at the same time. Mixed cabinets reward planning and punish improvisation more than uniform ones do.
When a closed lockable drawer beats an open bin
There are five situations where the drawer is clearly the right answer. First, when the surrounding air is dirty: a grinding bay, a fettling area, a woodworking shop or any location downwind of a cutting operation will fill an open bin with dust and swarf within weeks. Second, when the item is attractive and small enough to walk: drill bits, inserts, batteries, hand tools, branded consumables. Third, when the contents are confidential, which covers personnel files, tender documents, customer drawings and quality retains. Fourth, when the parts are small, flat and prone to migrating between adjacent bins whenever a shelf is knocked. Fifth, when your own procedure requires a locked location for a particular class of item.
There are also situations where the open bin wins and a drawer would be a mistake. Anywhere picking frequency is high, the second or two spent opening and closing a drawer is paid many times a shift and never recovered. Anywhere operators work in gloves, drawer handles and small contents are awkward while an open front is not. Anywhere you are running a visual kanban, an open bin shows its level from three metres away and a closed drawer shows nothing at all. And anywhere the part is bulky or heavy, a shelf-mounted bin carries the load on the shelf while a drawer carries it on the drawer front and its runners.
The failure modes are worth naming because they are predictable. The first is the drawer that gets propped permanently open because it is overfilled, which converts a dust-tight cabinet into an inconvenient open bin. The second is the lock that nobody uses: keys are issued to four people, three lose them, the fourth leaves the cabinet unlocked for convenience, and the control you paid for stops existing. Decide the key policy before the cabinet arrives, name the keyholder in writing, and keep the duplicate in the same place you keep every other plant key. The third failure is the cabinet placed where the work is not. A drawer system bought for a bench and then parked in the main stores behind an issue counter delivers almost nothing.
A practical middle path is worth mentioning, because most floors need both formats. Use closed drawers at the bench for the many low-volume part numbers and anything requiring protection or a key, and open bins in the racks behind for the fast movers and the bulk. Our page on the Alkon ACO component organisers covers the shallow wall-hugging drawer cabinets that sit between these two approaches, and the buying guides for the open bin families cover the other side. The two decisions are not in competition; they are different answers to different parts of the same part list.
- Choose a drawer when air is dirty, items are pilferable, contents are confidential or parts are small and flat.
- Choose an open bin when pick frequency is high, hands are gloved, stock level must be visible or parts are heavy.
- Decide the key policy and name the keyholder before the cabinet is delivered, not after.
- Never plan a drawer to be filled to the brim; a drawer you dig into is a drawer left open.
Subdividing the drawer: utility containers and drawer containers
A drawer with nothing inside it is one big compartment, and one big compartment holding six part numbers is a jumble by the end of the month. ALKON offers two different answers to this. Utility containers are made in three sizes to fit inside the D3 and D4 drawers, and are supplied in Computer Grey. They turn a single deep drawer into several defined pockets, so that a 62 mm or 87 mm drawer can carry three or four related part numbers without them mixing every time it is pulled. The current sizes should be confirmed against the catalogue before ordering, because the fit inside the drawer is the entire point of the product.
The drawer containers are a separate and larger family, and they solve a different problem: the inside of a steel tool cabinet drawer. They are moulded in High Impact Polystyrene, supplied in blue only, and made in six sizes built on a clean module. A is 150 by 150 mm in plan, B is 150 by 75 mm and C is 75 by 75 mm, each available at 45 mm and 75 mm height. In footprint terms one A equals two B equals four C, which is what lets you lay out a drawer in whatever combination the parts demand. Each container carries a label holder for a printed part identification slip, which is the detail that keeps the layout honest after the first rearrangement.
Laying out a tool cabinet drawer is straightforward arithmetic once you have the clear internal size. As an example, if a drawer measures 600 mm by 450 mm clear inside, the 150 mm module divides it four across and three deep, giving twelve A positions. Any A position can be traded for two B or four C, so the same drawer can be set out as twelve part numbers, or as twenty-four, or as forty-eight, or as any mix in between. Choose the height by what the drawer runners will comfortably carry and by what the cabinet allows above the containers; the 45 mm containers suit fasteners and small hardware, the 75 mm containers suit anything with height.
One caution on weight. Small steel hardware is dense, and a drawer set out with twelve A-75 containers filled with M10 bolts is a load that has to be pulled out on its runners several hundred times a month. Plan the heaviest containers towards the back and the lowest drawers, keep the very heavy fasteners in open bins on a shelf where the load sits on the shelf instead, and check that the drawer still closes smoothly when it is fully loaded rather than when it is half set up. This is the single check most often skipped at commissioning and most often regretted afterwards.
- A-45: outside 150 x 150 x 45 mm, inside 144 x 144 x 42 mm.
- B-45: outside 150 x 75 x 45 mm, inside 144 x 70 x 42 mm.
- C-45: outside 75 x 75 x 45 mm, inside 70 x 70 x 42 mm.
- A-75: outside 150 x 150 x 75 mm, inside 144 x 144 x 72 mm.
- B-75: outside 150 x 75 x 75 mm, inside 144 x 70 x 72 mm.
- C-75: outside 75 x 75 x 75 mm, inside 70 x 70 x 72 mm.
Planning a bank: width, height, depth and pull-out arithmetic
Because the Multi System shell is a fixed 410 by 310 by 333 mm, laying out a bank of them is arithmetic rather than guesswork. Side by side, two cabinets occupy 620 mm, three occupy 930 mm, four occupy 1240 mm and five occupy 1550 mm. Stacked, two come to 666 mm, three to 999 mm and four to 1332 mm. That means a run of four cabinets stacked two high, eight cabinets in all, fits a wall span of 1240 mm at a height of 666 mm, and as MS 12L that gives ninety-six separate drawer positions. Work in these steps when you draw the room and the layout will not need altering on site.
Depth at 410 mm is the figure that decides where the cabinet can live, and it is the figure most people forget. On a 600 mm deep bench a Multi System leaves only 190 mm of clear working surface in front, which is not a bench any more. On a 750 mm bench you retain 340 mm, which is workable for a scanner and a keyboard but not for assembly. The honest conclusion is that these cabinets usually belong on their own stand, on a side table, under a counter or in a dedicated stack against a wall, not on a working bench. Where the bench itself must carry drawers, the shallower ACO component organisers, such as the ACO 18 at 164 mm deep, are the better tool for that specific job.
Then allow for the pull-out arc, which is the mistake that only shows up on the first day of production. A drawer 360 mm deep internally needs roughly that much clear space in front of the cabinet to come out fully, plus room for a person to stand square to it and reach in. Two facing runs of cabinets set 900 mm apart leave under 200 mm of clear gangway once drawers on both sides are open, so the aisle is blocked while anyone is working. Mark the drawer swing on the layout drawing, check it against the gangway width your safety team requires, and check it again where a cabinet sits near a door or the foot of a staircase.
Finally, think about density and stability together. One cabinet occupies about 0.127 square metres of floor, so a single MS 12L gives roughly ninety-four drawer positions per square metre of floor area it stands on, and a double stack doubles that. That is a serious density for a records room or a spares store, but density has to be earned safely. Put the heaviest contents in the lowest cabinets of a stack, restrain tall stacks against a wall or a column, and keep the top row at a height a person can reach without stretching over their own head. The top of a four-high stack at 1332 mm is comfortable; anything materially above that should be reserved for slow movers.
The office records room: Roundafile and lockable drawers together
The Roundafile is the odd one out in the range and the most useful item in a records room. It is made from ABS plastic, measures 780 mm in diameter and has six partitions, and ALKON states that each tier holds 24 box files or 80 to 100 flat files and that each tier revolves independently so that a whole tier can be displayed at a glance. ALKON also states that the Roundafile system saves up to 60 per cent of the space needed for other filing systems and up to 50 per cent in cost compared with conventional wall filing systems. Those are the manufacturer's figures and we quote them as such; the space claim is the one most worth testing against your own room before you order.
The reason a rotary file works in a records room is the same reason a rotary tool store works at a counter: the operator stops walking. A wall of filing shelves is a linear search that gets longer as the archive grows, and the far end of it is always the part nobody re-files properly. Spinning a tier brings the files to the person instead. Where this matters most is the live file set, the forty or eighty folders in active use, rather than the dead archive, which is better off in boxes on a rack. Split the two before you plan, because filling a rotary unit with dead files wastes the one advantage it has.
The Roundafile and the lockable modular cabinets complement each other rather than compete. Put current files, folders and box files on the rotary unit where retrieval speed matters. Put loose paper, forms, printed stationery, cheque books, stamps, seals, staff records and anything confidential into AMSN or AMSEX cabinets with their central locking, using the 16 mm drawers for paper and a 62 mm or 87 mm drawer for the physical items that always end up in a records room. A records room set out this way has one fast-retrieval device, one locked device, and a clear rule about which document belongs in which.
Two Indian practicalities deserve a mention. First, damp. Records rooms in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Kolkata and coastal Gujarat see high humidity for months at a stretch, and paper stored against an external wall in an unventilated room will suffer regardless of what it is stored in. Keep cabinets a little off the wall, keep the room ventilated, and do not stack paper directly on the floor. Second, circulation. A 780 mm diameter unit needs standing room around the face being used; it does not need a pull-out arc, because it rotates within its own footprint, which is exactly why it fits rooms where a bank of drawers will not.
Rounda rotary storage for pharmacies, counters and workshops
The Rounda Storage Unit applies the same rotary principle to goods rather than files. ALKON describes it as a bespoke system giving high density storage in minimum floor space, with easy rotation and smooth movement of tiers so that goods can be reached without the operator moving their feet, and lists hospitals, pharmacies, shops, malls, factories and workshops as its settings. The unit size is 780 mm in diameter by 1750 mm high. It is built from a set of named components: the top, art number TP, one number; the tiers, art number RSUTR, six numbers; the pipe, art number RSU 6TP, one number; and the stand, art number STD, one number. The colour is Light Grey RAL 7035.
Where it earns its place is any counter-served store: a hospital pharmacy issuing against prescriptions, a retail counter, a tool crib where one storekeeper serves a queue, or a spares counter in a service workshop. In all of these the constraint is not shelf space, it is the storekeeper's walking. A six-tier rotary unit puts a large number of items within one standing position, and the person at the counter turns the tier instead of leaving the counter. That is also why it suits an electronics rework area, where a technician should not be stepping away from an earthed mat to fetch something.
Plan it on the floor before you order. The unit occupies a circle 780 mm across, about 0.48 square metres, and because it rotates in place its swept area is its own footprint. It does, however, need a person to be able to stand at it and turn it, so allow clear standing space at the working face and enough clearance that a passing trolley does not catch a tier. Height is the other planning number. At 1750 mm overall, the top tier sits well above comfortable eye level for many users, so put fast movers on the middle tiers and slow movers at the top and bottom, the same discipline you would apply to any rack.
One honest limitation: a rotary unit is a poor choice in a congested job shop where the floor is already full and every square metre is committed. Workshops in dense industrial estates around Rajkot, Coimbatore, Ludhiana style clusters and the older parts of Ahmedabad often cannot spare an accessible circle in the middle of the floor, and there the answer is a wall of drawer cabinets or shelf bins instead. Measure the actual free floor, including the space a person occupies while using it, before deciding. A rotary unit pushed into a corner where only one face can be reached has thrown away the reason it was bought.
Crash cart components for hospital furniture manufacturers
ALKON states that it has been a leading supplier of components to hospital furniture manufacturers producing emergency crash carts, and describes a crash cart as a set of trays, drawers and shelves on wheels used in hospitals to transport and dispense emergency medication and equipment at the site of a medical or surgical emergency, holding virtually all the materials, drugs and devices needed in that situation. Configurations vary, but most are waist high or chest high wheeled carts with many drawers. ALKON notes that its Modular Systems, Multi Systems, Hippo Bins with channels and Roo Tilt Bins with crash cart rails are used by crash cart manufacturers across India to create different cart designs. For a furniture manufacturer, these are bought as a repeating bill of material rather than as one-off items.
There are two component routes and it is worth being clear which one you are quoting. The Hippo route uses the Hippo Bin 612/S, the small size, at 150 mm long by 110 mm wide by 75 mm high, mounted on the Small Channel 612SC, which is 665 mm wide by 79 mm high by 18 mm deep. The channel runs horizontally across the face of the cart and the bins locate on it. Simple arithmetic on those two figures tells you what a designer needs to know: a 665 mm channel is long enough to take four 150 mm bins along its length with room to spare, so the number of bins per face follows from the cart width and the mounting orientation you choose. Confirm the intended orientation with us before you fix the drawing. The wider Hippo family is covered on our Alkon Hippo bins page.
The tilt bin route uses the Crash Cart Rail, which is 665 mm wide by 80 mm high by 12 mm deep, made from 1.5 mm CRCA steel and powder coated in Light Grey RAL 7035. ALKON states these rails are specifically designed to be mounted on crash carts used in hospitals, and that Roo Tilt Bins can be mounted on them using the RTB clips supplied with the bins, or bolted to the rails using suitable M6 bolts and nuts, which are not provided. That last detail matters to a manufacturer costing a cart: budget the M6 hardware into your own bill of material. Details of the bins themselves are on our Alkon Roo tilt bins page.
When you send an enquiry as a furniture manufacturer, send the cart drawing rather than a list of item codes. The figures we need are the clear width of each cart face, the vertical pitch you have allowed between rails or channels, the number of faces to be fitted, whether the drawers above or below are being built from Multi System or Modular System modules, and the annual quantity you expect to build. From that we can quote a per-cart set and a schedule against it, which is far more useful to a production planner than a price list. Manufacturers in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Haryana and around Delhi NCR order these sets on repeat, and the sets are easiest to control when the codes are fixed once and reused.
Laboratory, service workshop and electronics bench
A laboratory is a drawer environment more than a bin environment, because most of what a lab stores is either small, fragile, individually packaged or subject to its own internal procedure. Shallow drawers take slides, forms, filter papers, printed labels and record sheets; the 62 mm and 87 mm drawers take consumable boxes, pipette tips in packs, small glassware accessories and tools. Where your own SOP requires a particular item to be kept under lock, the AMSN and AMSEX cabinets are supplied with central locking as standard. Be strict about height, though: an 87 mm internal drawer will not accept a 100 mm bottle standing up, and laying bottles down is a decision for your lab, not for a storage supplier.
A service workshop uses the same cabinets differently. Here the drawer holds the slow-moving and pilferable half of the list while the fast movers stay in open bins at the bench, and the Poly Bins and Rails set fills the gap between them. The set is supplied as PBR-205, twenty bins and five rails, with the rails for wall mounting and the bins either stacked or mounted on the rails. Each poly bin measures 125 mm long by 100 mm wide by 75 mm high in Light Grey. That plan size is the same as a Supra SB 1 at 125 by 100 by 60 mm, with 15 mm more height, so a workshop already using Supra bins will find the poly bins slot into the same thinking.
Two wall accessories complete a workshop bench. The Tool Tray is a multi-purpose tray moulded in High Impact Polystyrene for holding screwdrivers, files, pliers and spanners; it can be screwed to a wall or a workstation, or used on a louvre panel, which is how most benches end up fitting it. The Multy Display Board, art number MDB-500, is 505 mm wide by 390 mm high, moulded in polypropylene copolymer, with 451 hanging holes and supplied with 38 steel hooks, eight large and thirty small, plus 38 plastic locks. ALKON describes it as extendable when necessary and intended for samples and displays in retail outlets, offices and homes, but it works equally well as a hanging board for small tools and fixtures at a bench.
The electronics bench is the one place where you must not simply carry this range across. The Multi System, AMSN and AMSEX cabinets, the drawer containers and the Tool Tray are standard insulating plastics. Inside a formally defined electrostatic protected area, an insulator next to a populated board is a liability, and the correct specification is the conductive range: see our page on ESD safe storage products for what is available and what to state on the enquiry. The commonest failure is mixing rather than buying the wrong thing in the first place, so if a bench carries both standard and conductive storage, keep them visually distinct and add the drawer type to your periodic area audit.
Procurement, supply from Vashi and a commissioning checklist
The enquiry that comes back with an accurate quotation first time carries more than a model number. Send us the list of what the cabinet has to hold, with the tallest item on each line and the quantity you want held at the point of use; the space you have to work within, including bench depth or wall width and the gangway in front; whether you need the locking version; which colour range you are working to; and how many identical stations you are equipping. From that we can propose a drawer mix and a cabinet count rather than quoting back whatever code you happened to name, and we would far rather correct a specification before dispatch than after it.
For a multi-location rollout, fix the standard centrally before the first order goes out. A company running units in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka that lets each site pick its own cabinet codes, drawer heights and colours ends up unable to move drawers, labels or trained storekeepers between them, and every internal transfer turns into a small argument. Decide the cabinet codes, the drawer heights, the colour convention and the location coding scheme once. After that, site-level variation becomes a documented exception instead of the default outcome, and a spare drawer bought in Pune fits a cabinet in Hosur.
We hold and supply the Alkon storage systems range from Shop-1, Gagangiri Chs, Sector 17, Vashi, Navi Mumbai 400703, which puts us alongside the Navi Mumbai and Thane-Belapur industrial belt and within straightforward reach of Mumbai, Pune and Nashik. We despatch regularly to customers in Ahmedabad and Rajkot, Bengaluru, Chennai and Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Kolkata and the Delhi NCR region. Because the cabinets, drawers, containers, rails, channels and accessories all come from one catalogue, a project needing cabinets, utility containers, a Roundafile and a set of crash cart rails does not turn into four purchase orders and four separate follow-ups. Call 93266 29967 or 98201 01937, write to enquiry@shreeram-metafusion.com, or visit us Monday to Saturday between 10:00 and 19:00.
- Every drawer opens fully and closes without being pressed down, with the cabinet fully loaded.
- The pull-out arc does not intrude into a gangway, a doorway or a facing run of cabinets.
- Stacks are restrained, and the heaviest contents are in the lowest cabinets.
- Every occupied drawer carries a printed label with part number, description, holding quantity and location code.
- Keys are accounted for, the keyholder is named in writing, and a duplicate is held where other plant keys are held.
- Ten to fifteen per cent of drawer positions are left empty and marked as spare at handover.
- Standard and conductive storage are visually distinct wherever both are present on one bench.
Frequently asked questions
What are the four drawer heights in an Alkon Multi System cabinet?
All four drawers share the same plan area of 360 mm deep by 270 mm wide internally, and differ only in height: D1 at 16 mm, D2 at 39 mm, D3 at 62 mm and D4 at 87 mm. Because the plan area is constant, the drawers are interchangeable in the same shell, and the configurations follow from the heights: twelve D1 drawers, six D2, four D3 or three D4, plus the mixed-height MS 3111L. The Modular Systems use the same four heights under the codes AD1 to AD4, and the Executive range under AD1 EX to AD4 EX.
What is the external size of a Multi System cabinet, and will it fit on a workbench?
The cabinet is 410 mm deep by 310 mm wide by 333 mm high externally. The depth is the figure that decides placement. On a 600 mm deep bench it leaves only 190 mm of clear working surface in front, which is not usable as a bench, and on a 750 mm bench it leaves 340 mm. In most cases these cabinets are better placed on their own stand, under a counter or in a wall stack. Where drawers must sit on a working bench, the shallower ACO component organisers, such as the ACO 18 at 164 mm deep, are the more appropriate choice.
What is the difference between Modular Systems AMSN and Executive Modular Systems AMSEX?
Both are plastic filing systems built on standard interlocking and stackable modules, both use four drawer sizes in the ratio 1 to 2 to 3 to 4, both are moulded in High Impact Polystyrene and both are supplied with a central locking system. The practical difference is the colour range. AMSN is offered in Brown, Dark Grey, Blue and Green, while the Executive AMSEX range is offered in Beige, Brown, Grey, Dark Grey, Light Blue and Green. The drawer codes also differ, AD1 to AD4 against AD1 EX to AD4 EX, so quote the correct code for the range you have chosen.
Can the cabinets be locked, and can they be stacked or joined together?
Yes to both. ALKON supplies the Multi System cabinets with or without a central locking system, so state on your enquiry which version you need, while the AMSN and AMSEX modular systems are supplied with central locking as standard. All of them can be interlocked side by side or stacked one on top of another, which is what makes the range modular. When you stack, put the heaviest contents in the lowest cabinet, restrain tall stacks against a wall or column, and keep the top drawer row within comfortable reach rather than above head height.
What does a 3111L configuration mean?
It is a mixed-height cabinet. The Executive Modular System AMSEX MIX-L 3111L is specified as three AD1 drawers at 16 mm internal height, one AD3 drawer at 62 mm and one AD4 drawer at 87 mm, all with locks, and the AMSN MIX-L 3111L and Multi System MS 3111L are the mixed-height cabinets in their ranges, with the exact drawer mix to be confirmed with us. It suits a location that has to hold both paperwork and objects in one shell, such as a maintenance supervisor's desk cabinet holding permits and job cards in the shallow drawers and seals, fasteners and boxed spares in the deeper ones.
What is the difference between utility containers and drawer containers?
They solve different problems. Utility containers are made in three sizes to fit inside the D3 and D4 drawers of the Alkon cabinets and are supplied in Computer Grey; they subdivide a deep drawer so several part numbers can share it without mixing. Drawer containers are a separate family in blue, moulded in High Impact Polystyrene and made in six sizes, intended to compartmentalise the drawers of standard steel tool cabinets. Each drawer container carries a label holder, and the sizes are modular, with one A footprint equal to two B or four C.
What sizes are the Alkon drawer containers?
There are six. A-45 is 150 by 150 by 45 mm outside and 144 by 144 by 42 mm inside; B-45 is 150 by 75 by 45 mm outside and 144 by 70 by 42 mm inside; C-45 is 75 by 75 by 45 mm outside and 70 by 70 by 42 mm inside. The 75 mm high versions repeat the same three plan sizes: A-75, B-75 and C-75, with inside heights of 72 mm. Because one A equals two B or four C in footprint, a tool cabinet drawer measuring, for example, 600 by 450 mm clear can be set out as twelve A positions, forty-eight C positions or any mix between.
What components do crash cart manufacturers order from this range?
There are two routes. The Hippo route uses the Hippo Bin 612/S at 150 by 110 by 75 mm on the Small Channel 612SC, which is 665 mm wide by 79 mm high by 18 mm deep. The tilt bin route uses the Crash Cart Rail at 665 mm wide by 80 mm high by 12 mm deep, made from 1.5 mm CRCA steel and powder coated in Light Grey RAL 7035; Roo Tilt Bins mount on it with the RTB clips supplied with the bins, or bolt on with suitable M6 bolts and nuts, which are not provided. Modular Systems, Executive Modular Systems and Multi Systems supply the drawer modules of the cart.
How much space does a Rounda Storage Unit or a Roundafile need?
Both are 780 mm in diameter. The Rounda Storage Unit is 780 mm diameter by 1750 mm high in Light Grey RAL 7035, and is built from a top marked TP, six tiers marked RSUTR, a pipe marked RSU 6TP and a stand marked STD. The Roundafile is made from ABS plastic, 780 mm in diameter with six partitions, and ALKON states that each tier takes 24 box files or 80 to 100 flat files and that each tier revolves independently. A rotary unit rotates within its own footprint, so it needs standing room at the working face but no pull-out clearance.
Are these drawer cabinets suitable for an ESD-controlled electronics area?
No, not as standard. The Multi System, AMSN and AMSEX cabinets, the drawer containers and the Tool Tray are moulded in High Impact Polystyrene, and the Multy Display Board in polypropylene copolymer; these are standard insulating plastics. Inside a formally defined electrostatic protected area you should specify from the Alkon ESD and conductive range instead. Tell us whether you need conductive drawers alone or the complete assembly and how the unit will be bonded, and keep standard and conductive items visually segregated wherever both are present.
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