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The Humble Pallet - Supporting Modern Business
They lurk in the corners of every warehouse in the land. They're piled high in storage facilities from Truro to Inverness. Without them, many global products would simply topple over. Literally. What are they? The humble pallet of course!
If you've ever had the pleasure of using them, you might have had a few splinters pierce your fingers as you grappled with these often heavy, but very useful mainstays of business logistics. Although these useful items are usually wooden, you also get plastic and aluminium pallets - though these are much lighter than their timber counterparts, but equally as strong.
Put simply, a pallet is a flat, usually square item measuring about a couple of metres. It is constructed so it can be lifted - normally by a forklift.
They are the unsung hero of many businesses. Not glamorous, that's certain, but imagine a day in the warehouse without them!
In a world without pallets the forklift driver might be the first to gape in astonishment as his fork creates conspicuous holes in his boss's valuable merchandise. Without them, getting hundreds of wooden boxes on to waiting lorries would be a challenge indeed. Lifting each item would be back breaking work for the whole team!
Until the hectic 20th century, barrels, kegs and crates were the usual method of transporting goods of all kinds across the country and the world. But as forklifts were developed from the late 19th to the early 20th century, the use of pallets became more and more common. The combination of forklift and pallet meant items of all shapes and sizes could by moved quickly from truck to depot or from port to ship.
Another major advantage to a well-made item such as this is that it should last for many years - having helped move around thousands of tons of merchandise and food related goods. Modern designs made of steel or plastic have even more longevity than the classic wood design.
From Stockholm to Capetown and from Lisbon to Tokyo, right now thousands of pallets are piled high with goods for customers across the globe. Unknown numbers of forklifts are shuttling these products across warehouses and docks, ensuring freight ships, trains and lorries are brim full of items - from artichokes to aluminium pipes, from zucchinis to zinc batteries. If you can buy it, then it has probably been transported on the humble pallet on several occasions before reaching your hands.
This massive shift in the way goods were transported can be illustrated by this well known example: In 1931 a train containing 13 thousand cases of tinned products took 3 whole days to unload, unpalletised. On a separate occasion, with the advantage of pallets, the same amount of goods took just 4 hours to unload!
As such a gradual development of pallets took place from the late 19th through to the early to mid 20th century, we cannot thank one person for the invention of this indispensable work horse of global trade. But one things is for sure, without them many of us would have some severe back pain, because many more of us would be employed in the logistics business!
About the Author Shaun Parker is a logistics expert with many years of experience in freight industry. Find out more about pallets at http://www.avatan.co.uk/
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