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Whitewood Under Siege: Wooden Shipping Pallets

cabinetmagazine.org

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Re: Whitewood Under Siege: Wooden Shipping Pallets

#51

Post by surrealize »

msandford wrote: post #5
GFischer wrote: post #2

A really compelling read. How many hidden industries like the pallets one are out there, waiting for software (or hardware) aid or disruption? I mean, 3.5 billion in pallet-related revenues :) , and millions in losses due to lack of tracking... is RFID really the best solution?

How much does a pallet cost to manufacture and how much does a lo-jack cost to implant? Further, how much does it cost to keep the lo-jack running for a decade? I used to run a 10,000 sqft logistics facility (really tiny in that world) and we kept a stock of about 20 pallets. I seem to remember the wooden ones costing $2-$5 used and the plastic ones less than $50 new. The most expensive pallets I could find from U-Li…

Just thinking out loud here--what about just using RFID for most of the pallets, and then putting powered electronics w/GPS only in some fraction of them? Say, 1 out of 20 or 50 (or whatever) pallets would have a battery, GPS, and an RFID reader; then those could read the RFIDS on any nearby RFID-equipped pallets. And transmit their location and the nearby RFIDs back to home base.

Re: Whitewood Under Siege: Wooden Shipping Pallets

#52

Post by msandford »

exhilaration wrote: post #44
vacri wrote: post #34

The article is stacking the deck pretty heavily: After all, collecting these stray pallets takes a lot of labor, a lot of miles, and a lot of trucks. vs they receive blue pallets whether they want them or not So the recyclers' hands are tied because they receive pallets mixed in with white pallets when delivered by the truckload, but then they get to turn around and talk of all the effort collecting them. It's not ha…

"I won't pay for blue pallets, because they're rented equipment. You can ship them to me, but I'll reduce the payout for a truckload by the number of blues". Correct me if I'm wrong but my impression from reading the article is that recyclers don't pay for those used pallets, they're just taking away what would otherwise be trash. So there's no incentive they can offer to eliminate the blue pallets from what they're…

It depends on the place. If you only have a few pallets you probably get charged for the pick-up. If you have many pallets you get paid a small amount. There is a cost associated with getting a truck from one place to another irrespective of how loaded down it is.

Part of the reason the whole CHEP thing happened is that there is very little high-level communication that goes on around all this. The pallet supply chain is mature and the folks managing it don't necessarily talk to the folks making it happen day-in and day-out all the time. Getting them to enforce some kind of rule that they will view as bullshit is going to be next to impossible. The blue pallets will show up at your facility anyhow and are you going to pay to ship them back? And then bill your customer for the cost of shipping them back? Either they won't pay and you'll have to take them to collections when they switch to a new recycler or you'll roll over since you want to stay in business.

When you're moving $10k worth of stuff on a $10 pallet and paying $2 to get it picked back up the $2 is a joke. When it costs $2 to pick a pallet up and $2 to send it back and your profit margins are probably 10-20% then if you get 5% CHEP pallets you end up paying double for them if you try and do the right thing (which eats up your 10% margin) or you just look the other way and don't think too hard.

Re: Whitewood Under Siege: Wooden Shipping Pallets

#53

Post by dustin1114 »

gig3m wrote: post #36
dustin1114 wrote: post #31

I've worked in grocery logistics for several years, and can tell you from experience just how political CHEP, PECO, and iGPS pallet distribution can be. Because of the size of my organization's warehouses, CHEP especially requires stringent audits, and if a truck sent out with CHEP when it was not supposed to, the gestapo comes after you. I will admit, though, that CHEP are the best when it comes to quality (other th…

Disclosure: I run one of the largest wooden pallet manufacturing companies in the United States. My family has been in this business for 50+ years. Your perspective on whitewood comes from a 3rd tier perspective (grocery, as you say). In other words your various suppliers buy their pallets from various sources and then ship their product into you on those pallets. You and your (former?) employer are not directly invo…

I have no disagreement with you on the merits of both CHEP and GMA pallets. I have have experienced good and bad pallets of both types, and the cost is definitely the deciding factor in the equation.

Generally, these are the pros and cons I see with the major types of pallets:

Pros ==== GMA: inexpensive, standard, lightweight (a VERY big deal when cubing out a truck), easy on the supply chain.

CHEP: pretty consistent, longer lifespan

iGPS: very consistent, easy on automation, they feel indestructible

Cons ==== GMA: generally a shorter lifespan, inconsistencies between manufacturers, quality varies

CHEP: expensive, heavy, red tape

iGPS: extremely expensive, heavy, red-tape

And yes, depending on the vendor, the quality of GMA pallets varies. There are excellent pallets that hold up and seem to be built with quality material, and there are others that feel like they break into pieces after a few handlings.

Re: Whitewood Under Siege: Wooden Shipping Pallets

#54

Post by dustin1114 »

gig3m wrote: post #47
gumby wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EUR-pallet isn't the only alternative. I'm fascinated that after all these years there isn't a standard pallet size. I have tried to design products that can "ship on a pallet" and end up shooting for a footprint one meter on a side which fits within a lot of format but leaves plenty of wasted space: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pallet#Dimensions

1) There are plenty of standards in the pallet industry, especially in the EU. ( http://www.palettes-cp.com/welcome-en.html ) The US has the 48x40 GMA which for many years was used almost exclusive in the grocery chain. These standards were born of similar or exactly the same needs from different customers. Things like 2x2 barrels, poly supersacks, square and octagonal boxes, etc. All those things are standardized an…

That's pretty neat: I discuss an interesting subject with someone on Hacker News that directly affects my current industry, but I am a few levels down in the supply chain. I deal more with product distribution and logistics, while you deal with the actual manufacturing of the pallets they sit on. Thank you for your expertise and insight!

Re: Whitewood Under Siege: Wooden Shipping Pallets

#55

Post by acomjean »

One of the theories on how the Asian Long Horn Beetle (an invasive insect that is also a wood boring bug) came to the US was in wood used in shipping. Either palettes (skids is the term I've heard), or wood bracing in shipping containers.

Plastic doesn't seem so bad.

Re: Whitewood Under Siege: Wooden Shipping Pallets

#56

Post by gig3m »

dustin1114 wrote: post #54
gig3m wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) There are plenty of standards in the pallet industry, especially in the EU. ( http://www.palettes-cp.com/welcome-en.html ) The US has the 48x40 GMA which for many years was used almost exclusive in the grocery chain. These standards were born of similar or exactly the same needs from different customers. Things like 2x2 barrels, poly supersacks, square and octagonal boxes, etc. All those things are standardized an…

That's pretty neat: I discuss an interesting subject with someone on Hacker News that directly affects my current industry, but I am a few levels down in the supply chain. I deal more with product distribution and logistics, while you deal with the actual manufacturing of the pallets they sit on. Thank you for your expertise and insight!

Believe me, the last thing I ever thought to see on HN was pallets! Glad to have the conversation!

Re: Whitewood Under Siege: Wooden Shipping Pallets

#57

Post by wikwocket »

GFischer wrote: post #2

A really compelling read. How many hidden industries like the pallets one are out there, waiting for software (or hardware) aid or disruption? I mean, 3.5 billion in pallet-related revenues :) , and millions in losses due to lack of tracking... is RFID really the best solution?

> How many hidden industries like the pallets one are out there...

Within one standard deviation of the mean, all of them.

Most hackers trying to 'disrupt' things naturally only work on what they know. So a lot of solutions are developed for industries everyone knows about: restaurants, travel, education, etc.

But most of the world's industries are not conducting business out in the open. They are operating inside factories, warehouses, labs, shipyards, trainyards, depots, private buildings, on the road, and in the field.

This is why a little niche knowledge is so powerful. Many industries only see innovation from people within the industry. But they usually have the same technical background as everyone else there, and the same blind spots. The hacker who has (or can get) enough domain knowledge to apply hardware and software in the right places is basically a Wizard.

Re: Whitewood Under Siege: Wooden Shipping Pallets

#58

Post by jacquesm »

lotsofmangos wrote: post #18

You could easily make a cheap machine that could make pallets to order out of plastic packaging scrap on-site. Judging from this article though, that might annoy a hell of a lot of people.

Have you ever seen an injection moulding machine that can produce something the size of a pallet? Do you know how much energy it takes to run one and how much expertise to keep it running? How much it costs? How much energy is required to power the recycling process?

http://i01.i.aliimg.com/photo/v0/1830977371/plastic_pallet_i...

These machines are viable because they run continuously (at least, when they're not broken).

You don't make them 'on-site', you make them in a thing called a factory because that's the only place where you can get the economies of scale to justify your capital expenses and your operational overhead as well as your energy supply arranged in such a way that you'll turn a profit.

I'm all for decentralization but there are good reasons why the word 'easily' is not applicable in the sentence above. Annoyance does not come into play until you've figured out how to do this economically.

Re: Whitewood Under Siege: Wooden Shipping Pallets

#59

Post by davidw »

acomjean wrote: post #55

One of the theories on how the Asian Long Horn Beetle (an invasive insect that is also a wood boring bug) came to the US was in wood used in shipping. Either palettes (skids is the term I've heard), or wood bracing in shipping containers. Plastic doesn't seem so bad.

Yeah, the place I work for these days ships to certain countries with plastic pallets because of the risk presented by insects.
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