The Unappreciated Pallet

It is difficult to find an article about supply transportation without seeing it refer to pallets. While everyone is concerned with what the pallet is transporting, it is easy to overlook the convenience and cost of the pallets themselves. In addition, while soldiers receive plenty of training on how to secure pallets, how much training is dedicated on how to preserve pallets?


US Soldiers give pallet and fork lift training to Afghan units

In an article on DCVelocity, author Susan Lacefield described that American businesses pay $750 million to $1 billion each year on lost reusable packaging assets. Each year, about 1 million pallets travel through the black market after being stolen, are turned into chips and sold overseas. Yet, 80% of pallets that are lost are actually in warehouses, misplaced due to the complexities of supply chains. While this article talks about pallet loss within American businesses, this hints at the amount of pallet loss within the military, especially when they are not as closely accounted for.

According to Tom Vanderbilt in Slate, pallets became popular as early as World War II and have become an integral of military logistics. Yet, with the advent of efficiency comes second and third order effects. For example, pallets were being used to easily store classified data in bulk. However, when a pallet with 99 pieces of unclassified information had a single piece of classified information in it, the whole pallet was stored in a warehouse as classified. It wasn't until 2013, that Maj. Jay Coats was able to solve this problem. He found 181 pallets of unclassified information taking up warehouse space. This is a classic example of how attempts at efficiency have other costly and inefficient effects.

The 463 Pallet

Another problem with pallets is that they are often misused. Lt. Christopher Sims of the 260th Military Intelligence Battalion described that while in Iraq, most empty pallets were used to fuel fires or burn old classified information. Newer versions of pallets such as the 463L created in 2005 was advertised as capable of making superb floors for tents. Instead of returning the pallets to the Defense Transportation System, personnel were misusing them, which became very costly for the military especially when each one of these pallets was selling for $970.

The best way to reduce a footprint is to reduce, reuse, and recycle. While pallets are being reused for floors or recycled into combustible material, they are not being reused to redeploy resources to another location. This prevents the military from reducing the amount of pallets it must purchase or generate for its everyday operations. When pallets are not used properly, more pallets must then be transported for use in theater. According to the Department of Defense, several thousands of pallets are sent to theater per month. If there was a way to ensure all pallets were being redeployed for the right purposes, this would decrease the amount of new pallets that must be generation and transported. When the military is trying to cut spending, pallets are a small and costly logistical asset that can easily be overlooked.