Comparisons of Pallet Materials & Summary of Existing Pallet Pool Programs

Comparisons of Pallet Materials & Summary of Existing Pallet Pool Programs
(MS WORD version)

February 17, 1999
Bob Sanders
IBM Corporate Packaging
3039 Cornwallis Road, Dept. VQZ, Bldg. 002-3
RTP, NC 27709-2195
(919) 543-1260
Fax: (919) 543-4253

Dear Bob,

The following is information that you may find helpful for the EIPS study. Feel free to copy any information you think should be passed on to the group.

Some points to pass along:

You can pick a one way pallet or a returnable pallet. Returnable pallets are much more cost effective, if they can be retrieved. The key is pallet management.

Nails are very important in wood pallets. Good nails cost pennies more, and can triple the life of a pallet. Poor quality nails save pennies on the purchase price, and cost dollars in product damage and increased handling.

Below are some generic comparisons of pallet materials. Assuming each is properly designed for the application, I attempted to rank as good (+) or poor (-). Of course, there are exceptions for each of these. For any application, the pallet design must balance Strength, Stiffness, Durability, Functionality, and Cost. Your pallet can be manufactured of any material, to any performance level, at some cost. Weight is also an issue for some industries.

Material	Strength	Stiffness	Durability	Functionality with material handling equipment	Cost
Wood (one way)	+	+	-	-	low
Wood (returnable)	+	+	+	+	medium
Plywood	+	+	+	+	high
Plastic (HDPE)	+	-	+	-	high
Plastic (engineered)	+	+	+	+	Very high
Paper	-	-	-	-	low
Metal	+	+	+	+	Very high

Some industry pallet standards or pools that serve as examples:

Grocery industry

The US grocery industry adopted the Grocery Pallet Council (GPC) design in 1976. This was a 48x40-inch, stringer style, high-quality, heavy-duty design. Grocers shipped out on this pallet, and received "similar" pallets from the pool. There was no enforcement or certified manufacturers, however, and today’s GMA-type pallets are often lightweight, poor quality skeletons of the original GPC design. There is no GMA specification. The typical GMA-type pallet today costs about $8.00 and weighs about 55-60 pounds when new.
The Chep USA leased pallet pool began in the 1990’s. Chep manufactures high quality (softwood) 48x40-inch pallets. The pool includes a stringer pallet and a block style, perimeter base pallet. Chep’s US pool has grown to 30 million pallets today. They are more durable, stronger, stiffer, and offer greater product protection than GMA pallets. If available for purchase, these pallets would cost $20-25 each and weigh about 65-70 pounds when new.
The Grocery Industry Pallet Subcommittee developed a list of pallet performance specifications in 1992. Chep’s pallets meet most, but not all, of these specifications.
The Canadian Pallet Council (CPC) also manages a grocery pool in Canada. This very heavy-duty hardwood design costs about $15.00 ($US) and weighs over 100 pounds when new. Pool participants buy CPC pallets as needed from certified manufacturers. This reduces cheating on the specs, and is supposedly less expensive than leasing.
Due to the poor quality of the GMA pool, the NWPCA has developed new prescriptive pallet specifications for 48x40" pallets. These are designed to support load weights of 1500, 2000, and 2800 pounds, and are called the CPR 1500, CPR 2000, and CPR 2800, respectively. These are painted to easy identification, and manufacturers are inspected by a 3^rd party agency to ensure compliance to CPR specifications.
Grocery companies report success with plastic pallets in their internal pools. To my knowledge, however, there is no plastic pallet pool that cycles through different manufacturers today in the grocery industry.

Chemical Industry

The U.S. Chemical Packaging Committee of IoPP developed performance specifications for shipping pallets in 1996. The sizes are 48x40", 52x44", and 45x45". Pallets must support one metric ton, and fit the specified handling systems.
The European Chemical Industry has developed 9 pallet specs (CP1 through CP9). These are all block style pallets of different sizes and deck configurations. The sizes are 1000x1200mm, 800x1200mm, 1140x1140mm, 1100x1300mm, 760x1140mm, 1200x1000mm, and 1300x1100mm. One pallet size did not work for that industry group. I recently heard about CP6 through CP9 available in plastic, but this has met with limited success.

Printing Industry

The Committee for Graphic Arts Technology Standards (CGATS) developed performance criteria for 4 pallet sizes: 44x44", 48x42", 48x40", and 42x42". They allow molded block pallets, non-molded (wood) block pallets, and non-molded (wood) stringer pallets. This is now an ANSI standard, CGATS.7-1995.

Automotive Industry

The Automotive Industry Action Group developed RC-8, Single and Multi-Use Container System Guidelines. This specification covers standard pallet sizes of: 30x32", 40x48", 45x48", and 54x48". They recommend that the 48" width be maintained and pallet length adjusted for specialty–sized pallets.

EuroPallet

This is the 800x1200mm European pallet pool. It is a block style pallet with a unidirectional base. It has been used successfully in Europe for many years. Manufacturers used to be certified by the Railroad Association, but this is changing as railroad shipping is replaced more by trucking.
Chep also leases the 800x1200 Euro-style pallet and a 1200 x 100mm pallet in Europe, Asia, etc. These are block style, and the 1200x1000 is a perimeter base design.

NWPCA’s SPEQ program

The National Wooden Pallet & Container Association developed a SPEQ Quality Assurance program for wood pallets. This has been successful in some industries, and not successful in others. In general, a third party inspection agency ensures you get what you paid for, and the pallet must meet certain minimum manufacturing and durability levels. This will add to the cost of a pallet, but may be well worth the cost to maintain consistency between pallets purchased by different industry pool members.

ASME MH1.8M, Uniform Standard for Wood Pallets.

Any pallet specifications you develop for wood pallets should reference this document to ensure conformance to industry best manufacturing practices.

Development of the EIPS pallet(s) is either a performance-based or prescriptive-based process:

Performance based:

Document the target unit loads and material handling systems.

Based on this information, develop physical and performance characteristics required for pallets to function in these systems.

Develop a test protocol to evaluate pallets.

Identify acceptable pallets through testing.

Prescriptive based:

Document the target unit loads and material handling systems.

Based on this information, develop physical and performance characteristics required for pallets to function in these systems.

Develop a test protocol to evaluate pallets.

Develop a preliminary prescriptive pallet specification.

Fine-tune prescriptive specification through testing and field use.

I hope this proves helpful. I look forward to meeting with you in Orlando. Please call if I may be of assistance.

Sincerely,

John W. Clarke