So, the real question is a simple one. How much room do you want your operation to have?

Clear span means no internal columns. The roof crosses the full width in one span, and the floor is open wall to wall, yours to use however the operation needs. Internal columns take a different route, holding the roof on rows of posts. For most operations, Formsteel recommends clear span. Our SuperSpan™ system makes it lighter, faster to build, and more cost effective than people expect, so an open floor isn't the expensive option. It's the smart one, and it's the one thing you can't add back later.

What an open floor gives you

Racking is where you feel it first. In an open building you set your runs, aisles, and pick faces exactly where the operation wants them, then reconfigure freely whenever the product mix shifts. Every position stays available to you, because nothing is fixed in the middle of the floor.

Materials handling is the next win. Forklifts, reach trucks, and AGVs move quickly and smoothly through open space, with clear sightlines and straight runs. Your team gets a floor that's easy to move around, which keeps things flowing and keeps the site safer.

Then there's automation, the part that's easy to overlook because it's often a decision for later. Robotics, conveyors, and automated storage are simpler to install and easier to expand in a clear volume. An open floor keeps that door open, so whatever you choose down the track, the building is ready for it.

Formsteel's SuperSpan™ system spans up to 60 metres clear. That's enough to cover almost any warehouse in a single open volume, keeping the whole floor flexible for the whole life of the building.

When internal columns make sense

Formsteel builds both, and there's a situation where columns earn their place: a footprint so wide that a single span isn't the most efficient way to cover it. On a very large building with a stable product mix and racking set once and left, columns can be coordinated to sit neatly inside rack ends rather than aisles, so they carry the roof without getting in the operation's way.

The key word there is coordinated. Columns do their best work when the structure is designed around how you actually operate, not just the loads it carries.

Why one roof makes the decision easier

At Formsteel, the architects, engineers, and designers who plan your layout work alongside the people who build the structure. Your racking coordination is solved together, in one model, by one team. It's modelled in Structural.IQ™ and priced up front before you commit, turning design that used to take weeks into days. The price we quote is the price we build, because the team that quotes it is the team that makes it.

How to decide

Start with your operation, not the structure. Think about how goods move, where they sit, how they're picked, and how all of that might change over the next decade. Then choose the layout that gives your operation the most room to work. For most warehousing, that's clear span: lighter, faster to build, flexible to run, and worth more to own. Columns come into their own on very large footprints, where a single span isn't the most efficient answer and the layout is fixed enough to coordinate them cleanly. Formsteel builds both, engineers both properly, and is always happy to talk it through.

Building a warehouse? Talk to our team about the layout that gives your operation the most room to grow.