From Forklifts to Robots by Tishma Technologies

Pallets and pallet handling, invented in the 20th Century, became one of the most significant logistics tools. Over the past century pallets continued to develop, thus enabling the evolution of modern logistics. Use of pallets brought important efficiency improvements in the handling and transport of unit loads. During World War 2, some additional improvements were added to pallet design and management.

Army logistics in WW2 by Tishma Technologies 

The first to take steps in developing new warehouse handling and storage methods was The Office of The Quartermaster General, Field Operations Branch of the Storage Division. They were faced with the big pressure and big responsibility: their new methods had to give results quickly. At the time, one manufacturer was able to deliver an amount of a fork trucks with a load capacity of 2000 lb.  As a result, the system was predicated on this particular truck, and the pallet of the Quartermaster Corps was designed to fit that truck load capacity. A standard Quartermaster pallet is 32 in. long and 40 in. wide.  A million or more of these were procured and placed in service during the following year.

As the time passed, manufacturers of fork trucks increased their production and the Quartermaster General procured the larger trucks for all services, making the use of larger pallets more common.

The Navy started its materials handling program in 1942.  By then, the manufacturers of fork trucks were in quantity production, so the Navy ordered more of the larger trucks with load capacity up to 15,000 lb.  This is why the pallets made for inter-depot and overseas shipment are bigger: they are standardized on the 48 x 48 in. for inter-depot and overseas shipment, and 42 x 66 in. pallet for the intra-depot movements

According to some experts’ predictions, somewhere between one million and three million pallets will be disposed of by the government once they are no longer needed by the Army. The largest volume will be in the 32 x 40 in., 48 x 48 in. and the 42 x 66 in. sizes. Some of the 42 x 66 in. pallets will be picked up by stevedoring companies for use in marine terminals, and other pallet sizes will be used by manufacturers who are now learning the value of this shipment.

Before the Army ordered so many pallets, industry had been reconsidering building pallets of light, cheap construction, so called “single shippers,” intended to carry one load and then be discarded as scrap lumber, but since a large surplus of pallets is expected, this cheap “one use” type of pallet will not be developed.  Instead, the industry is probably going to absorb the surplus pallets.

 

Palletizing than and now by Tishma Technologies

Many companies utilize pallets for shipping and stacking of their products and since manually placing boxes on pallets can be time consuming and expensive these companies turn to automatic palletizing systems. If you still haven’t, consider investing in a good, automated palletizing system built to meet your needs, check out robotic Palletsizers by Tishma Technologies.