Pallets: Not just for shipping

Craig Carson (pictured, left), president and chief executive officer of Jeco Plastic Products, which designs and manufactures rugged pallets and containers for the printing, automotive, warehousing and other industries, talks about the role of plastic pallets in print and converting environments.

 

For many package printers, pallets are the platforms, usually made of wood, used to ship material.

 

But pallets today have moved into a new area, particularly in package printing and related manufacturing. These new products – generally known as work-in-process pallets – are used to move material within the printing plant, but never leave the facility. Work-in-process pallets are usually made of plastic, and package printers need to approach their use with entirely different criteria to those used for conventional, wooden pallets.

 

Every manufacturer needs to handle products at intermediate steps in the production workflow. Factories use bins, boxes, trays, and even conventional wooden pallets, to move partially finished products and bring parts and sub-assemblies to the production floor.

 

Package printers must move and temporarily store high-value products that can be easily damaged. Using conventional wooden pallets to handle work-in-process means products may be damaged by pallets failing under load, and that workers may be injured by loose nails and splinters.

 

In many instances, a better alternative is plastic pallets. Not only can conventional wooden pallets be replaced with more sturdy plastic pallets, but the plastic pallets can be designed and formed to fit precisely into press delivery areas or high-speed logistics systems.

 

Several manufacturers provide work-in-process plastic pallets appropriate for package printers. Most of their offerings are designed to fit the delivery of specific presses or die cutters, including popular models offered by Heidelberg, manroland, KBA, Bobst and other suppliers. Curved pallets to accommodate roll stock of various diameters are also available from stock.

 

Off-the-shelf pallets are reasonably priced because the costs of plastic molds are amortized over long periods of time and many customers. But even when stock pallets are not available for a specific application, the rotational molding process used to manufacture most work-in-process plastic pallets makes custom pallets a reasonable alternative.

 

In addition to employee safety and product protection, plastic pallets offer a number of other advantages over conventional wooden pallets or other product handling concepts.

 

Employees welcome plastic pallets because they are lighter in weight and can be handled without the caution necessary with wooden pallets.

 

Plastic pallets are also fully recyclable and facilitate compliance with ISO 14001, which specifies the actual requirements for environmental management systems.

 

Perhaps most important, unlike their wooden counterparts, plastic pallets never need repair and can be expected to last for decades.

 

For the typical package printer, plastic pallets offer operational advantages far beyond simply replacing wooden pallets, and plastic pallets have a distinctly positive effect on product quality.

 

Packaging materials and labels can be stored and transported without fear of damage. Stacks of product do not distort due to pallet deflection. Plastic pallets in package printing environments provide a common, standard platform serving equally well in the pressroom, die cutting area and finishing. Storing printed packaging on plastic pallets provides a safe and reliable buffer between presses and die cutters.

 

Many package printing operations use machines with different formats.

 

The same factory may see presses, die cutters, folders, laminators and other machines of different dimensions. As a result, personnel in different areas often devise work-in-process pallets of different sizes. This can make moving unfinished product difficult, necessitating adjusting forklift prongs and storage bays, or using expensive pile turners.

 

For such applications, a custom continuous feed pallet with ribs in both directions permits using one pallet both in the delivery of a large format sheet-fed press and the input to a die cutter, simply by turning the pallet at a 90-degree angle.

 

As package printing operations become more automated, the need for uniform work-in-process procedures grows.

 

Newer presses often rely on high-speed, continuous-feed equipment, which cannot tolerate the dimensional variations often seen in wooden pallets.

 

Using plastic pallets in these situations often eliminates the expensive downtime that can result from a failed wooden pallet in an automated environment. Another consideration lies in logistics systems such as the Heidelberg XL series and the manroland Aupasys. These highly automated production processes, which transport empty pallets on wide roller systems, require pallets made to precise tolerances.

 

The durability and stability of plastic pallets generally reduce labor as well. In many factories, one or more employees is required merely to maintain and repair wooden pallets. With plastic pallets, employees can be diverted to more productive tasks.

 

From an accounting standpoint, wooden pallets are usually treated as an expense.

 

But plastic pallets – which can be expected to last 25 to 30 years or more – are more logically viewed as a capital expense and should be depreciated.

 

Reduced labor, increased machine and process efficiency, a cleaner workplace and workflow uniformity make it easy to rationalize plastic pallets over wooden ones. Manufacturers of plastic pallets can provide details, but generally the return on investment for plastic pallets is less than two years, despite higher initial costs.

 

Real-world applications

Package printers around the world use plastic pallets to improve efficiency and reduce costs.

 

A Belgian package printer with a Heidelberg XL105 press uses plastic pallets in a continuous-feed package printing operation because of the precise dimensional requirements of the conveyor system. The pallets, which first see service in the delivery to the press, are used not only to convey printed product throughout the plant, but even to transfer unprinted paper to the feeder end of the press. Plastic pallets can be manufactured to extremely tight tolerances, thus ensuring that the latest equipment can be operated at design speeds. Wooden pallets are not sufficiently uniform to be used in this application.

 

A large German package printer with very short print runs also uses plastic pallets to ensure a uniform workflow when jobs must be moved from press to finishing. In this factory, an entire print run may fit on a single pallet, and a long print run might be ten pallets. Plastic pallets employed in the continuous-feed workflow provide uniformity in product movement and storage, regardless of job size, and produce savings in time, personnel and cost on jobs as small as three pallets.

 

In the US, a large web printer uses oversized flat-topped plastic pallets to move and store small printed items before final finishing and mailing. The custom plastic pallets used in this application were designed to hold printed stacks weighing as much as 16,000lbs (7,255kg). These large pallet loads are used not only to move product to the finishing area, but to provide short- and long-term storage. Because of the weight involved, these pallets were designed to be pushed with forklifts, and are reinforced to eliminate puncture by forklift forks.

 

The printer eliminates buffer storage issues by pushing multiple pallets to the warehouse or bindery, even across expansion joints in the concrete floor. Moving several pallets at one time reduces traffic problems and dramatically reduces the number of forklifts required.

 

And a British printer specializing in packaging for the food industry uses plastic pallets because of their hygienic qualities. Unlike their wooden counterparts, plastic pallets are easy to clean and do not absorb odors or liquids. They can be used in food preparation areas and clean rooms.

 

As can be seen from these examples, plastic pallets offer distinct advantages over the common wooden pallets often seen in package printing plants.

The long life and sturdiness of plastic pallets make them the ideal choice for virtually any operation.

 

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