Current situation of plastic pallet industry in China

Mar - 30
2018
plastic pallet

Current situation of plastic pallet industry in China

In September 2002, the China Logistics and Purchasing Federation Pallet Professional Committee conducted surveys on more than 300 plastic pallet industry of production, transportation, warehousing and distribution in four major cities of Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Guangzhou. How to solve such aspects and proceed to the specific understanding and analysis of the use of Chinese plastic pallet industry, this work is conducive to strengthening the coordination and guidance of the plastic pallet industry, but also for the logistics management departments and related companies to provide valuable information and recommendations.

(1) The material of the existing pallet

According to a preliminary survey conducted by the Pallet Professional Committee of the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing, China now has about 50 to 70 million pallets of various kinds, and the annual output is about 20 million pieces. Among them, about 90% of wooden flat pallets, 8% of plastic flat pallets, and 2% of steel pallets, composite pallets, and paper pallets. Composite flat pallets and plastic pallets have a larger proportion of rise.

plastic pallet industry
plastic pallet industry

(2) Standards and main specifications

At present, China’s pallet specifications are quite confusing. In addition to the mechanical industrial systems using the 800mm×1000mm and 500mm~800mm pallets of the specifications specified in JB3003-81, in 1996, the Ministry of Communications of the Ministry of Transport of China proposed that it be equivalent to ISO 6780:1988 “Main Dimensions and Tolerances of Intermodal Universal Flat Pallet”. Adopted as a national standard for Chinese pallet. Later, the former State Bureau of Technical Supervision ratified and published the equivalent standard with the series number of GB/T2934-1996 standard, including four pallet specifications of 1200mm×1000mm, 1200mm×800mm, 1140mm×1140mm, and 1219mm×1016mm.

In addition, regarding the pallet standard, China has GB/T3716-2000 pallet terminology, GB/T16470-1996 pallet packaging, GB/T15234-1994 plastic flat pallet, GB/T4995-1996 general flat pallet performance requirements, GB/T4996-1996 intermodal general flat pallet test methods and other national standards. Not only that, but also in China’s Japanese-owned and Korean-funded companies, a large number of 1100mm x 1100mm pallets are used. All these indicate that China has adopted too many pallet standards. If it is not vigorously rectified, it will be difficult to effectively solve the problem of the unification of pallet specifications in China.

The pallet professional committee survey found that the pallets in circulation were in a messy format. Including: 2000mm×1000mm, 1500mm×1100mm, 1500mm×1000mm, 1400mm×1200mm, 1300mm×1000mm, 1200mm×1000mm, 1200mm×800mm, 1200mm×1100mm, 1100mm×1000mm, 1100mm×1100mm, 1100mm×900mm, 1000mm×1000mm, There are dozens of specifications such as 1000mm×800mm, 1200mm×1200mm, 1300mm×1600mm, 1300mm×1100mm, and 1400*1100mm.

The specifications of plastic pallets are relatively concentrated, mainly 1100mm×1100mm and 1200mm×1000mm, accounting for about 50% of the plastic pallets. This is due to the fact that injection molds are used in the production of plastic pallets, and the cost of mold development is relatively high. The specifications of wooden pallets are relatively confusing, and the specification is mainly based on the use of the unit to customize according to the specifications of their own products. This is related to the relative simplicity of the wooden pallet manufacturing process. There are not many specifications for steel pallets, and they are concentrated in two to three specifications. They are mainly used for ports and other units that require relatively high pallet weight. In addition, during the investigation, the Pallet Professional Committee also found that most of the companies use flat four-way fork double-sided pallets, accounting for about 60% of the total number of pallets used. The rest are flat two-way fork double-sided pallets, single-sided flat pallets, box pallets and column pallets. The use of special pallets is relatively small. Box pallets are now used for material handling in the company’s production process and are basically not in circulation.

(3) Turnaround

According to statistics from the Pallet Professional Committee, the current use of Chinese pallets is basically an internal turnover of the company. For a production company, the pallets it owns are not companies, and the use of pallets is limited to the transportation from the company’s warehouse to the transport links. For logistics companies, pallets are also confined to the internal deployment of companies and have not yet formed a mechanism for the smooth circulation of pallets.

(4) pallet operation

The development of pallets can be said to be synchronized with forklifts. The use of forklifts and pallets together creates an efficient loading and unloading system that greatly increases the efficiency of handling. From a statistical point of view, pallets are basically used with forklifts. Each forklift is equipped with 800 to 1000 pallets.

Problems in China’s plastic pallet industry

(1) The use method is backward and cannot fully utilize the advantages of the pallet
The pallet itself is a kind of unitized logistics apparatus that was born to cooperate with efficient logistics. It can be said that the pallet is the connection point that runs through every link of the modern logistics system. However, due to the inconsistent specifications in our actual use, the pallets cannot be used in the logistics operation chain, and are limited to the interior of the company.

(2) Due to the pallet turnover method, the cost of circulation process is too high
From the investigation, it can be found that the vast majority of companies’ pallets are turned around within the company, so that the company’s products are loaded and unloaded manually many times, which greatly reduces the work efficiency and increases the product’s circulation costs accordingly, thus reducing the number of products. Competitiveness in the market.

(3) Difficult to integrate with international standards
Because the specifications of the pallets are not uniform, the use of pallets in China cannot be matched with international transport equipment such as internationally accepted containers. In order to be able to adapt to the relevant international transportation tools, enterprises have to order pallets with pallets that are inconsistently used by the pallet production companies, thereby increasing their export costs and reducing their international competitiveness.

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