Pallet experts teach safety course at Virginia Tech

Searching for ways to improve the humble wooden pallet, supply chain professionals from around the country gathered in Blacksburg, W. Va., on August 4 for training on pallet design software.

Representatives from Amazon.com Inc., DuPont Co., and 19 other companies attended the two-and-a-half day educational short course at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, titled “Wood Pallet Design and Performance: Pallet Design in the 21st Century.”

Together, the cross-section of pallet manufacturers and recyclers, pallet brokers and end-users learned how to design efficient and safe wooden pallets using the National Wooden Pallet and Container Association (NWPCA)’s Pallet Design System (PDS) software program, according to the university.

PDS users can improve pallet strength, stiffness, and durability by using the program to simulate design aspects such as pallet materials, the location and dimension of components, and loading and handling conditions. Attendees also tested their designs in a laboratory at Virginia Tech’s Center for Packaging and Unit Load Design (CPULD).

“CPULD at Virginia Tech is an outstanding facility to host a course on pallet design. The attendees were able to observe actual load tests in a lab setting while learning how to simulate loading a pallet using PDS,” said Brad Gething, Technical and PDS Manager at the NWPCA. Gething hosted the class along with CPULD director and Virginia Tech professor Laszlo Horvath.

The two groups will join forces to repeat the course in the spring of 2016 at a new location in Washington, D.C. For more information, see http://www.palletcentral.com or http://unitload.vt.edu.