Pallets, Packaging, & Forklifts: A History of Shipping
The Evolution Of The Wooden Pallets & Shipping
Today’s pallets are designed to withstand great weights and to be lifted by a forklift on and off trucks, ships and planes. Without the pallet, the global economy might not be as global as it is.
The pallet is an offshoot of the skid. The difference being that the skid has no bottom boards. Modern day pallets are made from plastic, aluminium, and most commonly wood. Wooden pallets are price effective and structurally capable of holding large weight bearing loads.
The invention of the forklift and the structural improvements in the pallet to accommodate the forklift quickly revolutionised the shipping and transport industry. For example, a typical boxcar filled with 13,000 cases of canned goods took 3 days to unload in the 1930’s. With cases mounted on pallets and with the use of a forklift, this task today takes about 4 hours. The pallet allows goods to get loaded, transported and unloaded much more quickly than in earlier generations.
