tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post1942708953099587273..comments2024-03-26T14:19:33.332-07:00Comments on Bench Grass: Postblogging April, 1944: Technical Appendix: The Road to MandalayErik Lundhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05728486209757153685noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-6623827522923665712014-05-05T02:25:44.575-07:002014-05-05T02:25:44.575-07:00Good points well made about the chep ones. #pallet...Good points well made about the chep ones. #palletsAlexhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17153530634675543954noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-82836115313937637102014-05-02T11:51:26.551-07:002014-05-02T11:51:26.551-07:00It's a bit weird to see the whiteboard pallet ...It's a bit weird to see the whiteboard pallet presented as normal, and the CHEP as some kind of weird, Australian(!) interloper. CHEP pallets can be interlocked on trucks, as they can be entered from the sides, and so stowed wide as well as long. (If you have to do that in your refrigerated spaces, you know that some order writer is Doing It Wrong.)<br /><br />Meanwhile, whiteboard pallets tend to be pieces of junk put together out of scrap wood that disintegrate faster than they can be unloaded. I guess that's the consequence of the vend-to-own strategy. A particular pallet is associated with a particular load, and usually both are a bit expendable. (Stuff the store needs comes on CHEP or, increasingly, plastic. Stuff that people want the store to take comes on whiteboard. It's not a general rule, but it'll do.) <br /><br />Since the salvage has to come out of the stores if they are going to go on operating (cue screaming matches between managers and truck drivers), you have to ship the pallets back. "Recycling" is not an option at the front. Although in the old days, we burned the broken up pallets along with cardboard and wooden packing crates. But that's the real old days --long before I joined the industry. <br /><br />I imagine that the same applies at the warehouses and further up the chain. Empty pallets have to cycle in the opposite direction as loaded ones, or there will not be space for anything else. Having a pallet depot at the back of the chain makes sense.<br /><br />Now, you can get to a weird place where the trucks are half-taken up with salvage and undeliverable loads, but I only know that from WWII experience. Though I would not completely rule out Pepsico ending up there in the next few years, with delivery trucks cycling back and forth with half their space taken up by orders that have been refused delivery, with no storage room at the bottling plant. The flip side of that is the tendency to treat trailers and even shipping containers as improvised storage spaces. <br /><br />Did I have a point? Probably not, so I'll just wind it down, instead.Erik Lundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05728486209757153685noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6568915967186844196.post-77829491065764478322014-05-01T06:35:23.351-07:002014-05-01T06:35:23.351-07:00Pallets! http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/52/...Pallets! http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/52/hodes.phpAlexhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17153530634675543954noreply@blogger.com