Jun 29 2022

How to Optimise the Organisation of your Pallet

If your warehouse is responsible for sending out a high number of pallets per day, it is vital that all items are efficiently packaged and arranged on each pallet. Especially if your company is paying per pallet for shipping, or for the number of trucks used daily. There are certain steps to take for the palletisation process to be cost and time effective, whilst also keeping your staff and stock safe. If you haven’t evaluated how you organise your pallets recently, now is the time, as you may have been missing out on some powerful strategies which will change the success of your warehouse.

Choose Column Stacking

Brick Stacking – when the footprint is switched every layer so that the cartons interlock – is the most common formation used by warehouses when arranging stock on a pallet. However, it has recently been discovered that Column Stacking improves carton performance by 25-30%! If you haven’t heard of Column Stacking, this arrangement occurs when the same footprint is maintained up the pallet and each carton is stacked on top of the other. Organising the pallet so packages are laying directly above one another ensures maximum safety and security of the stock, meaning there is less chance of damage to products occurring during transport. Column Stacking is the best tactic to use to certify that there are no gaps between stock, every single area of the pallet is tightly packed. This leads to more products fitting on the unit, correlating to fewer pallets needing to be used and therefore, lowering money and time spent by the business on organising pallets.

When done correctly, Column Stacking can increase the amount of product per layer and pallet stability, Davpack can guarantee improved security by providing your warehouse with our anti-slip pallet sheets. Even with amazing stacking, packages can still slip during transit, which can lead to gaps between items and risk even further damage to products or injury to staff. Anti-slip sheets are a low-cost, but incredibly effective tool to use in-between layers to prevent any shift of material.

Secure Surroundings

Another money and time-saving tactic for optimising the palletisation process is using security wrap or polypropylene strapping. Both items are crucial to have within your warehouse as they improve stability, security, and the ability to stack higher on a pallet. This means that there is less product waste created within the working environment. It can also ensure that larger operations are quicker due to not having to worry about movement or item damage that would usually happen without the stretch wrap. The security wrap sold by us here at Davpack also comes in black, which makes items harder to identify and as a result, makes theft less likely. The wrap also clings to itself, so it does not only add stability to palletised loads – creating easier and safer transport – but also, makes application a lot quicker than a regular stretch wrap. Security wrap machines are recommended to cause the stretch wrap process to be a lot faster, but the polypropylene strapping kit is a guaranteed more flexible option than strapping machines. Optimising your pallet using stretch wrap kits also helps keep your workers in good health as reaching the bottom of pallets in order to wrap them manually can overwork the back. This can eventually cause back issues if wrapping the items regularly, so using stretch wrap kits can ensure high security, and efficiency and release pressure off of your warehouse operatives.

Customise Your Pallet

One last tip for organising a pallet is to package stock with boxes that are fit to size. Using custom-made boxes will decrease how much empty space is in each carton and therefore, ensures that more stock can fit on each pallet. Davpack also provides custom-made inserts, edge guards, and other forms of protection to improve the amount of wasted space on each pallet even further. In correlation with the other advice provided in this blog, having packages that are smaller, but still protected, will save time and money for your business. Having more products fit onto one pallet transcends into fewer pallets being used overall throughout the day; stock can now be transported quicker and less money will be lost by an unnecessary excess of trucks and pallets put into transit per day.

Optimising the palletisation process is incredibly important for any warehouse, it assists with producing less packaging waste within the work environment whilst saving money and time for your business. At Davpack, we always want to help improve the efficiency of your warehouse, to get a quote on custom boxes and protection, send us an enquiry or call today on 01332 821200. We are always happy to help.