The following article was published in the supplement produced by Lyonsdown Media Group and distributed in the Sunday Telegraph on November 7th, 2010.
The unsung hero of the supply chain
Recent innovations are putting the humble pallet at the centre of efforts to improve supply chain efficiency.
Have some sympathy for the humble pallet, which you could say is literally at the bottom of the supply chain. It takes the load without complaint, and it is rewarded by being bashed about by forklift drivers and dropped in loading bays by contractors who care even less for its welfare.
Where would we be without the pallet?The pallet is often the unseen part of almost every supply chain. But increasingly pallet rental solutions are delivering more value by utilising logistics expertise to work together across the supply chain and collaborate with customers and retailers.
Collaboration can deliver real benefits for users and establish smoother paths for returning used pallets to the starting point in good condition. Further innovations include the redesign of the pallet itself to provide a stronger, lighter and more environmentally friendly platform for delivering goods.
Cooperation between pallet suppliers and users is crucial for improving the return path of pallets, according to Phil Storer, European commercial director at pallet pool operator IPP Logipal.
“Almost no supply chain in the world would work without the humble wood pallet, and now customers want to create value by sharing transport, with on-site depots in their factories and working with spare capacity in transport networks,” he says. “Increasingly, customers are asking us to act as logisticians.”
Pallet suppliers are also beginning to act as contact points for collaboration between transport operations that would otherwise be rivals.
IPP Logipal has collaborated with retailers to collect pallets and establish storage depots at key regional logistics companies’ premises, so they can undergo quality control checks, be cleaned and returned efficiently into the supply pool with minimum transport.
“The challenge is to lower the carbon footprint of transport,” Storer says.
The pallet itself has been changing rapidly in the last few years, with the arrival of plastic and even metal pallets, but the new materials are generally expensive and recycling is an issue.
One of IPP Logipal’s sister companies in the Faber Halbertsma Group, Easypal BV in the Netherlands, makes a paper pallet that is lighter, as strong and cheaper than the standard wood version.
The Easypal is made by wrapping offcut paper into square section tubes, which are used to create a pallet structure that looks very similar to the familiar wood. Because the paper is ‘upcycled’ and easily recycled, the pallets are as green as they could possibly be – except for the glue, no new materials and very little energy is consumed in manufacture.
The paper pallet can be used as a direct replacement for wood, but can be much more than that. Being paper, it is easy to add a final layer of printed paper to the pallet, so it can act as an attractive point-of-sale display when it reaches its destination, eliminating the need to unload it or stack the shelves - a major saving in manpower for the client.
What a turn-up for the poor old pallet - transformed from grubby, functional, throwaway package to the star of the show.