A pallet is a flat transport structure that supports goods in a stable stack so they can be lifted and moved as a single unit by a forklift or similar equipment, most commonly built of wood though also made from plastic, metal, paper or recycled material. Its precursor, the skid, dates back to ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia at least as far as the first millennium BCE, but the modern pallet emerged in the twentieth century: Howard T. Hallowell patented an early Lift Truck Platform design in 1924, and George G. Raymond and William C. House patented pallet designs between 1937 and 1939 that remain in common use today. Pallets spread quickly as forklifts improved through the late 1930s, and the logistics demands of the Second World War drove their use further, creating a standardized platform compatible with mechanized handling equipment that proved ideal for containerized shipping and eventually displaced older methods such as loading goods into wooden boxes and barrels; roughly half a billion pallets are manufactured worldwide each year today.
Facts
SignificanceRaymond and House pallet features of 1937 to 1939 remain in common use today 1 FAQs
Why do pallets shipped across borders carry a stamp?
ISPM 15 requires treated wood to stop invasive pests spreading; a heat treated pallet is stamped HT.
Under the International Plant Protection Convention, most pallets shipped across national borders must be made of materials that cannot carry invasive insects or plant diseases, and the standard is ISPM 15. Raw untreated wood does not comply, so the pallet must be debarked and then treated, most often by heating the wood to a core temperature of at least 56 degrees Celsius for at least 30 minutes. A pallet treated this way bears the initials HT near the IPPC logo.
Connections
Sources
1. Pallet, Wikipedia
History, earliest patent
The earliest may be a U.S. patent on a skid from 1924 describing Howard T. Hallowell's "Lift Truck Platform".
History, Raymond and House
the essential features of both are still in common use today.
In Field: Industrial Engineering, Introduction
A pallet (also called a skid) is a flat transport structure, which supports goods in a stable fashion while being lifted by a forklift, a pallet jack, a front loader, a jacking device, or an erect crane.
In Group: Warehouse and Material Handling Systems, Introduction
A pallet (also called a skid) is a flat transport structure, which supports goods in a stable fashion while being lifted by a forklift, a pallet jack, a front loader, a jacking device, or an erect crane.
View the SourceReader Challenges (0)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.