Pallet Observations

This video is of our M2L lumber stacker we purchased from the Pallet Machinery Group behind our Newman band saw.  We stack everything from half inch boards  to one 1.5 inch runners on the stacker which can stack up to 12 layers per minute. We have had this stacker for about 5 years and before that we had a similar M2L in the same spot. A different stacker from PMG is behind our notcher.

Lumber Stackers Keep Production of Wooden Pallets Moving Fast

These stackers help keep us rolling here at Dominion Pallet, bringing you high quality, wooden pallets for international or domestic shipping.

I started working for Dominion Pallet 23 years ago, but before that I had never really thought about pallets. Before coming to Dominion Pallet, I worked in the shipping department of a company in Charlottesville, VA. The guys in the warehouse ran into pallets with their forklifts as they were loading and unloading trucks and would even use the pallets to stand on. If they broke a board they never gave it any thought as they pitched it in the trash pile. I never really thought about the cost or construction of those pallets.  I always thought that a pallet was just several pieces of wood nailed together. Boy, was I wrong.

Have you ever thought about what is involved in the purchasing of pallets? Pallets must meet the shipping requirements of the products they carry to prevent accidents and lost revenue. A company shipping a product must determine

• What product will go on the pallet
• The weight the pallet will hold
• The cost of the pallet
• Will the pallet work for the business

With this information, someone at the company contacts the pallet manufacturer, like us.  Dominion Pallet builds pallets to each company’s exact specifications. We have over 1,000 different specs in our database that are required by the various companies we serve.

We are PDS trained to design pallets that meet or exceed the performance level of your shipping needs. We ship to locations in the Mid-Atlantic region with quick turn-around.

If you have questions about shipping pallets, contact us. We’re happy to help determine the pallet that will best suit your shipping needs. Contact Joyce Sprouse  or Matt Yancey.

You contact Dominion Pallet to order shipping pallets to your specifications. What happens from there? Matt Yancey answers questions on how a typical order is processed:

Your pallet load starts with a phone call or e-mail and then is put into the production schedule by Scott Walton.  The process begins by cutting lumber to size. Lumber is run on either the Woodmizer system that turns cants into boards or run through the planer and then cut on the KM-16 saw. 

After the lumber is cut to size the runners may have to be notched or boards may have to be chamfered before the pallets are ready to be made.  The Viking nailers make the pallets once the lumber is ready for production.  A full load of pallets takes about 2 1/2 hours to make once it reaches the nailer. 

Finally if your load needs to be heat treated, then it is loaded into the heat treating chamber and cooked.  Heat treatment can take between two and four hours depending on the outside temperature.

Wooden pallets are quality inspected, then delivered to your business.

Here's a sample of some of our custom pallets.

Standard 48x40 GMA 4 way Pallet


Heavy Duty Double Wing Pallet used to store Concrete Blocks


Four Stringer two-way pallet for any industry


Heat Treated Block Pallets for Shipment to Europe


A Diverse Pallet Load for a Variety of Clients

We went out on the road yesterday and met with four of our customers in four unique industries.  One customer was extremely busy.  They are working 24/7 and still struggling to meet all of their orders on time.  One had just come out of their busy season and was looking forward to a less hectic schedule and two companies were slower than they would like to be.
    
We had created a new design for our first visit of the day.  The base of the new pallet will be built on our state of the art Viking Turbo 505 and then additional parts will be added by hand.  The new design will keep the customer’s product off the floor, which was how they were storing the product prior to shipping and will help reduce some of the product damage they were experiencing.  

Our second customer voiced his displeasure of having to use IGPS plastic pallets in some instances rather than our standard new wood pallets.  He told me the plastic breaks easier than wood when hit with a forklift and then they end up in the dumpster. Does that sound "green" to you?

At the end of the day, all four customers were happy for the face to face contact and our willingness to listen to their problems and design solutions to meet their needs.