Pallet for Home

What is a shipping pallet?

Saturday, June 12, 2010

• The purpose of a shipping pallet (sometimes called a “skid”) is to greatly facilitate the stable movement of goods with transport devices like forklifts, pallet jacks, or front loaders.
• In 1931, it took three days to unload a boxcar containing 13,000 cases of unpalletized canned goods. When the same amount of goods was loaded into the railway trucks on pallets, this took only four hours.
• The common shipping pallet was first patented by Howard T. Hallowell in 1924 as a "Lift Truck Platform.” Its invention was precipitated by the development of the modern fork lift truck around the same time.
• There is currently no international uniform measurement for a shipping pallet, because of variations in things like factory door size, but the standard North American size is 40” X 48”.

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