Subject: Minutes, EIPS Meeting 9/23/99
Author: Non-HP-btsander (btsander@us.ibm.com) at HP-PaloAlto,mimegw9
Date: 9/23/99 1:35 PM
First of all, thanks to all attendees for their time, expertise, and candid commentary and a special welcome to John Healy, a "first time caller" as the radio stations would say. If I erred on anything of significance, bring it up next time.
Attendees:
| John Healy: NWPCA |
| John Clarke: VTU |
| John Hayward: Compaq |
| John Joe Brown: Liebert |
| John Paul Russell: HP |
| John Kevin Howard: HP |
| John Erich Guenter: IBM Germany |
| John Richard Black: AMP |
| Barry Bob Sanders: IBM |
Notes / Minutes:
Barry, um Bob Sanders introduced the first draft of the voluntary specification most of which consisted of placeholders for various bits of information. The major sections were reviewed in sequence (see knowledge base on website for complete text). The following comments are meaningless unless you have at least reviewed the text.
Survey Question: Barry vs. Bob -- Which is worse, being tackled 30 times a game by 300 pound monsters or attempting to standardize pallets industry wide?
Comments / Questions from the discussion were as follows:
| Is downsizing from 48x40" to 1200x1000mm going to cause a problem to the pallet manufacturers (Howard)? Answer: Shouldn't be a problem (Clarke). However, standard lumber cuts will be different around the world. A prescriptive spec could be limiting, whereas a performance spec provides some flexibility. Philosophically, we should be working toward a performance style specification as opposed to a prescriptive style to minimize the effect of global Mfg. differences. |
| Should preferred dimensions be listed as 1200x1000mm and 1200x800mm (vs. reverse order)? Answer: YES, this will ensure the proper orientation of the runners. |
| Will this reversal compared to stringer pallets cause a problem? Explanation: A 48" stringer has bottom deck boards running the 40" direction. A 1200x1000mm block style pallet will have the bottom deck |
| boards running in the 1200mm direction. Answer: Yes, could be a factor on certain roller style conveyors. It is best if the boards run perpendicular to the direction of the rollers. This problem would be solved by full perimeter base styles vs. uni-directional. |
| Will the pallets be stamped or certified in some way? Answer: Probably yes. This could be identical to the DIN stamp for Euro Pallets or simply be a SPEQ stamp or ISO-9000 stamp signifying that the pallet was made to our specs. I think we need to add additional qualifiers to the SPEQ stamp if this stamp is used. For instance, SPEQ - C1, 2, or 3 indicating Computer Industry, Level 1 specification and so on similar to how the Chemical Industry pallets are marked. |
| You must not use the DIN (or "EUR") stamp unless the pallet actually meets the prescriptive construction requirements. At present, there are no licensed manufacturers of Euro pallets in the US but this will change soon (Ref: E-PAL organization). Editors Comment (not discussed during meeting): We're not sure if the official EUR pallet is what we want (overkill for some applications) but this could fulfill our needs for the 1200x800mm Level 1 pallet. If so, this would not also need to be marked with the Computer Industry stamp. |
| With regard to various performance levels to provide some leeway and cost effectiveness it was suggested to have up to 3 different performance levels each with their own performance criteria. For example: Level 1 could represent a pallet designed for permanent long term reuse and exchange worldwide as in a pool system. If we were to use a pool system, the pallets captured by that system would be category 1. Categories 2 and 3 would be lesser specs for limited reuse or for use within a controlled network and so on. This resolves the concern about adding cost unnecessarily to the entire industry. Customers could demand Level 1 at their expense and so on. At least we would have some assurance that the quality would be fairly consistent within categories. |
| Slipsheets: Discussion on why slipsheets weren't gaining greater favor in the industry. Answer: Training costs, equipment costs, initial damage experiences shortly after implementation have cooled everyone to this option. If these problems could be resolved we would be further along with this approach. There is no reason not to implement them for controlled upstream shipments such as full containers inbound from Asian suppliers for instance. This way, the training and tooling is limited to two nodes vs. trying to outfit an entire transportation and carrier network. |
| Do we pay an outside organization to control quality and help manage the system? Answer: Not necessary with SPEQ system at least with regard to quality compliance. There is no cost to the pallet user for this. We will engage pallet logistics providers at a later date if or when we decide to implement a managed reusable pool pallet system. |
Again, I encourage all participants to be actively involved in writing the actual specification. Feel free to take one of the major sections of the document and expand on what has already been provided. Send me actual text of suggested revisions and I'll paste it into a master version. I'll send that to Paul several days ahead of the next meeting and we'll go through it again. By the end of the year we should be getting close enough to float it out to the pallet manufacturers for their input. "See" you on Oct. 21, 11am eastern.
See website for dialing instructions.
Regards,
Bob Sanders
IBM Corporation
WDOS, Dept. VQZ, Bldg. 002-3, Office MM302 RTP, North Carolina, USA, 27709-2195
Phone: 919-543-1260, Fax: -4253 (IBM T/L: 441) email: btsander@us.ibm.com
IBM Intranet: w3.wwd.ibm.com/documentation/packaging