Have Your Pallet Specs Become Wrecks?
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It happens in business time after time. The phone rings and a pallet supplier gives you a price that seems too good to be true. You set up a meeting and carefully go over the spec's you require. Wood choice. Moisture content. Nail count and spacing. Stacking requirements. Size and weight specs. All you see are nodding heads. So you decide to give them a try. The first order comes in and everything looks fine, then the next one and maybe even the one after that.
And then it happens.
The high-quality pallet you thought you were buying and all those vital specs can't quite live up to the low ball price. Surprised? You shouldn't be. It's business-as-usual for some pallet suppliers.
Somewhere in your pallet stack, usually in the middle so they're harder to spot, those showcase pallets start to show a reduction in quality. The pallets now have a board or two missing. Where two nails were required, only one appears. And the moisture content has mysteriously gone up beyond what you require.
The reasons are simple. When a price is drastically cut, that money shortfall has to come from someplace. And it's usually from your pallet. If the price can't sustain the pallet, either the price has to go up or the quality has to go down.
Why does this happen in the first place? The answer is as old as the business itself. Lure in a customer with a low and often unsustainable price, then tap dance around the promises made to get that customer. If the quality, reliability and deliverability of your pallets and your pallet supplier are the key ingredients in your selection choice than you have to make a wise choice.
Ask yourself if you really believe that initial price was achievable and deliverable before you make the switch. To use a much overused cliche, "If it's too good to be true, it's usually not true." And the cost to you can be greater than you think.
Think about this. You spec a pallet for many important reasons. The integrity of the product you are putting on it is the most obvious. But there are other issues that might not come to mind at first.
What are the IT costs of integrating a new supplier into your accounting systems? What are the costs of taking them out when they and their pallets fail to deliver on their promises? Consider the safety of your warehouse staff, and equally as important, your customer's staff. What would happen if that bargain pallet is compromised and causes injury on either end? What about equipment — yours and theirs? A broken board or a loose hanging nail can cause damage whose cost will far exceed the pennies saved on bargain pallets. There probably isn't a company anywhere that hasn't had an "Uh oh" moment, or worse, from equipment damage and failure.
Then, of course, there's the issue of accurate counts at pick-up and delivery. More often than any of us would like to remember, there can be a long count in delivery and a short count for collections. Remember, that money has to come from someplace. Working with a company that can guarantee accurate information is the key.
Some new plastic pallets with inserted RFID chips make the claim that their information is always accurate. A pallet with an imbedded radio frequency identification tag does not guarantee accuracy of information. This program has been worked on for over a decade and to date there has not been success in delivering a 100% read rate. In addition, you would need the hardware and software to read the data. How many doors are there at your facilities loading docks? Multiply those doors by roughly the $16,000.00 it can cost to buy and install them and see how fast your pallet costs stack up.
There are a number of things to consider before you make that leap. One is the untenable environmental claims based on their recycling claims. 100% recyclable does not account for the long anti-environmental trail from the production of plastic.
A recent letter written by an FDA consumer safety officer warned that the chemical deca-bromine which goes into making plastic pallets fire-retardant may migrate into the shipped products, including food items. So if you're looking for a greener pallet, you can be sure that plastic is not the way to go.
Another option out there is the rental pallet, but again can they really deliver the specs you are looking for? They typically only come in one size so if you have special requirements, forget it.
Another big issue is the real cost of a rental pallet if that pallet is lost, unreturned, misdirected or unaccounted for somewhere in your supply chain. That happens for any number of reasons. From accounting and miscount slip-ups, to vacationing employees, sloppy dock-sweeps or simply the crush of business details each of us has to deal with on any given day. What would a back charge of thousands or even millions of dollars drain from your bottom line?
I believe the best pallet suppliers are invisible. They fill your order, pick-up and deliver without you having to think about it. That's achieved by consistently doing what you promise. By delivering what you say you will when you say you will — with accurate counting and accountability and by delivering integrity and honesty with every pick-up and delivery. Sure slip-ups can happen. Those that are an accident can be excused, but the ones that are planned are inexcusable.
Michael Smith is the C.O.O. of PALNET, a national, environmentally-friendly pallet supplier. He can be reached at 877-PALNET-1.