Resources: Shipping Pallet Terminology
Terms and Measurements for Shipping Pallets
Block Pallet
A type of pallet with blocks between the pallet decks or beneath the top deck.
Chamfered Deck Board
A deck board with the edges of one or two faces beveled, either along the full or specified length of board or between the stringers or blocks, facilitating entry of pallet-jack wheels and tines of forklift trucks.
Closed "Loop" or Closed Distribution System
A shipping system restricted to moving goods between specified plants and facilities.
Cost per Trip
Average cost of pallet or container use for a single one-way movement of the unit load consisting of 4-6 handlings.
Drive-Screw Nail
Continuously helical threaded or fluted pallet nail.
Economic Life
The number of trips the pallet will make over its lifetime, provided it is properly repaired, which maximizes the return on the investment (an output of the PDS software).
Exchange Pallet
A multiple-use pallet intended for use among a designated group of shippers and receivers where possession of the pallet is transferred with ownership of the unit load pool pallet.
Expendable Pallet
A pallet intended for a limited series of handlings during a single unit load movement from shipper to receiver.
Pallet Fastener
A device for connecting pallet components such as nails, staples, screws, bolts, lag bolts, adhesives and welds.
Fastener Shear Index
Measure of the estimated shear resistance of the pallet fastener relative to the shear resistance of a high-quality "baseline" pallet nail.
Flush Pallet
A pallet with deck boards flush with the stringers, stringer boards or blocks along the ends and sides of the pallet.
Four-Way Notched Heavy Duty Stringer Pallet
A pallet with openings at both opposite pallet ends and sides sufficient to admit hand-pallet jacks-full four-way entry pallet.
Pallet Free Span
The distance between spacers within the pallet and the distance between external pallet supports as in a warehouse rack.
Grocery Industry Four-Way Pallet
A generic reference to the pallets used in grocery manufacturing, distribution and retailing. Historically, it meant a "GMA pallet" which was a pallet specified by the Grocery Manufacturer’s Association.
Handling
A single pick-up; movement as a result of picking up, transporting and setting down of an empty or loaded pallet.
Hardwood
A wood from a broad leafed tree species (not necessarily hard in texture or dense).
Life to First repair
The number of one-way trips of the pallet prior to requiring any repair.
Limited-Use Pallet
A pallet designed for an average of up tp 9 trips with an average of 5 handling per trip in an average environment.
Load Bearing Surface
The interface between pallet top deck and the unit load supported by the pallet-interface between pallet bottom deck and pallet-supporting area.
Logistics
The process of planning, implementing and controlling the efficient, effective flow and storage of goods, services and related information from point of origin or point of consumption for the purpose of conforming to customer requirements.
Multiple-Use Pallet
A pallet designed for repeated uses for more than one unit load with an average minimum life-to first repair of 10 trips or more with an average of 5 handlings per trip in an average handling environment.
Notched Stringer
A stringer with 2 or more notches spaced for fork-tine entry (partial 4-way entry).
Pallet
A portable, horizontal, rigid composite platform used as a base for assembling, storing, stacking, handling and transporting goods as a unit load often equipped with a superstructure.
Pallet Design System (PDS)
A reliability-based computer-assisted design CAD program for wood pallets for determination of the safe load-carrying capacity, performance and economic life of wood pallets.
Pallet Life
The period during which the pallet remains useful under given maintenance conditions expressed in units of time or in the number of one-way movements of the pallet.
Quality
Consistent performance of a uniform product meeting the customer’s needs for economy and function normally represented in terms of conformance to predetermined, agreed standards.
Racked Across Deck Boards (RAD)
Output of the PDS evaluation software describing the maximum load-carrying capacity and deflection of a wood pallet and its decks where the warehouse racking frame supports the pallet only at the deck board ends.
Racked Across Stringers (RAS)
Output of the PDS evaluation software describing the maximum load-carrying capacity and deflection of a wood pallet and its decks where the warehouse racking frame supports the pallet only at the stringer or stringer board ends.
Repaired Pallet
Pallet with damaged components replaced with new or recycled components in order to reuse it.
Recycled Pallet
A pallet that has been used, discarded, salvaged, repaired or rebuilt in order to pass through another cycle or cycles of use. Environmentally responsible.
Rental Pallet
A pallet owned by other than the user and rented by the user.
Returnable/Reusable Pallet
A pallet designed to be used for more than one trip-multiple use pallet.
Reversible Pallet
A pallet with identical or similar top and bottom decks, to allow either one to support the unit load.
Shipping Pallet
A pallet designed to be used for a one-direction movement of the unit load from shipper to receiver. It is then recycled or disposed of.
Single Wing Pallet with Optional Chamfer on Bottom Boards
A pallet with the top deck boards or deck extending beyond the outer edge of the stringers or stringer boards and with the bottom deck boards or deck, if any, flush with the outer edges of the stringers or stringer boards.
Skid
A pallet without bottom deck boards or deck.
Slave Pallet
A rigid or platform; single, thick panel used as a support base for a palletized load in warehouse rack storage facilities or production systems.
Softwood
Wood from coniferous or needle bearing species of trees (not necessarily soft in texture or of low density).
Stiff-Stock steel Nail
Pallet nail made of medium-high carbon steel without heat treatment and tempering with a MIBANT angle between 29 and 46 degrees inclusive.
Stringer Pallet (Premium Plywood Panel Deck)
Continuous, longitudinal, solid or notched beam-component of the pallet used to support and space the deck components often identified by location as the outside, interior or center stringer.
Stringer Pallet (Heavy Duty Two-way)
Continuous, longitudinal, solid or notched beam-component of the pallet used to support and space the deck components often identified by location as the outside, interior or center stringer.
Trip
A series of 4-6 handlings of a pallet. Required to move a palletized unit load from the shipping point to the receiving point.
Wing
Overhang of deck board or deck end from the outside edge of the stringer to increase unit-load area, to add pallet load-bearing capacity, to reduce deck-board end splitting by fasteners or to facilitate the lifting of a pallet with bar slings hanging from a crane.
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