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Home » This Guy Reinvented the Shipping Pallet, Making It Safer, Stronger and Smarter

This Guy Reinvented the Shipping Pallet, Making It Safer, Stronger and Smarter

May 16, 2018
Forbes

The pill packages had likely been contaminated by trace amounts of a fungicide used to treat the 6-inch-tall wooden platforms, which carried them from factory to warehouse to retailer. The cost of lost production and yanking Tylenol and Motrin off store shelves: $900m.

The lowly shipping pallet — a ubiquitous tool of modern commerce — has a habit of causing trouble. The wood harbors bacteria, spoiling a shipment of produce. A pallet cracks, sending a stack of televisions tumbling to the floor. In a fire, a stack of wooden pallets is tinder.

Jeffrey Owen thinks his Lightning Technologies, based in Oxford, Michigan, has the answer: a virtually indestructible, lightweight, hygienic and fire-retardant pallet with an embedded tracking chip. The Lightning pallet is made of wood, but it's encapsulated with a polymer coating that makes the wood durable and easy to sanitize. The chip records everything about the pallet's journey in real time: temperature, humidity, accidents and, of course, whereabouts.

The high-tech pallets have logistics experts doing cartwheels. "Today there's no way to measure how the product is handled or controlled for temperature," says Bob Spence, a vice president at Del Monte Fresh Produce. "And God forbid there's a recall." With a smart pallet, he says, "you have the ability to trace that product quickly and determine what field sold it. Then maybe you don't have to go back and recall everything."

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Logistics Global Logistics Logistics Outsourcing Transportation & Distribution Technology Inventory Planning/ Optimization SC Planning & Optimization Supply Chain Visibility Global Supply Chain Management All Warehouse Services Conveyors & Sortation Lift Trucks & AGVs Order Fulfillment Healthcare Pharmaceutical/Biotech
KEYWORDS All Warehouse Services Conveyors & Sortation Global Logistics Global Supply Chain Management healthcare Inventory Planning/ Optimization Lift Trucks & AGVs Logistics Logistics Outsourcing order fulfillment Pharmaceutical/Biotech SC Planning & Optimization Supply Chain Analysis & Consulting Supply Chain Visibility Technology Transportation & Distribution
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