Pallets are said to move the world. Eighty percent of commerce ships on Pallets. The pallet industry is estimated at greater than $30 B worldwide. More than 500 million pallets are manufactured in the US each year, with 1.8 billion pallets in service in the US alone.
Pallets can be made from various materials, however wood pallets currently comprise about 80% of the market. More than 40% of worldwide hardwood lumber currently goes toward the manufacturing of wood pallets. Other materials used for pallet manufacturing include plastic, metal and corrugated paperboard.
Recent regulations regarding infestation and contamination are creating a surge in interest and use of non-wood pallet alternatives. A small, but fast growing segment is the use of corrugated pallets. Corrugated pallets are typically constructed from corrugated paperboard but they can also be constructed using corrugated plastic. Many pallet users, both shippers and receivers, desire to replace conventional wooden pallets with pallets made of corrugated material for their numerous benefits: increasing ability to recycle, lowering pallet weight, eliminating product contamination, reducing pallet storage volume and costs, and reducing pallet related injuries.
In some applications, material handing is conducted using stacker type forklifts that have front roller forks as well as lifting forks. Stacker forklifts have the advantages of being smaller and more maneuverable than conventional type forklifts and are lower cost. Unfortunately, the front roller forks preclude the use of pallets, or shipping platforms having a bottom deck. Skids are a type of pallet without a bottom deck; they are the shipping platform of choice for these and many other applications. Skids also provide the benefits of easier pallet jack entry than traditional pallets, and can be a solution for widespread shipping applications.
Many different designs of corrugated skids have been developed to date. Despite the potential advantages of corrugated skids, most have suffered from several different deficiencies. These deficiencies include low strength and stiffness, high use of corrugated material, resulting in high material costs, along with high overhead, assembly labor and freight costs. The inherent inability to readily produce and distribute corrugated skids in sufficiently high volume has also been of critical importance.
Accordingly, a new assembly method for corrugated skids is needed that can allow rapid assembly of corrugated skids with minimal tooling set up and tooling costs and can be readily accomplished repeatedly with minimized operator fatigue.