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Cold Chain Management for Pharmaceuticals: Choosing a Pallet
One recent Sunday, I checked my apartment’s mailbox to find that the postman had left me a key to one of the lockboxes where the apartment stores packages as they arrive. At first, I was excited; I thought that the new graphics card I’d ordered for my PC had arrived. When I opened the lockbox…
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Green Warehouse Practices: Running an Eco-Friendly Storage Warehouse
In the words of Niall FitzGerald, former CEO of Unilever, “Corporate social responsibility is a hard-edged business decision. Not because it is a nice thing to do or because people are forcing us to do it…because it is good for our business.” Businesses aren’t immune to the consequences of waste and excessive energy consumption; wasted…
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Pharmaceutical Product Transportation: Why Your Pallet Matters
Pharmaceutical products are the result of centuries of insights, years of rigorous research, and the incredible feats of engineering that it took to turn all that science into a reliable production line. Yet, the distribution and transportation of pharmaceuticals is its own difficult field. Pharmaceutical product transportation is one of the biggest challenges in the…
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Improving Cube Utilization in the Warehouse
A vital part of meeting the growing demands of consumers is getting more of your goods to market. Producing those extra goods is often a relatively simple matter of assigning extra shifts to production or working more fields. In the supply chain, though, those extra goods pose more difficulties. Attempting to fit more product into…
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Damage Prevention in the Supply Chain: How Plastic Pallets Can Help
Product damage during transit is universal in the supply chain. After all, you cannot tell a bag of lettuce or a shipment of medication to be careful on its journey to market, and unlike piggies, damaged products do not go “wee, wee, wee,” all the way home. Manufacturers have become used to simply reporting the…
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3 Ways to Improve Operational Efficiency Using Plastic Platform Pooling
Once your product is manufactured, then the real work begins of getting it to consumers via a complicated network of trucks and trains. A supply chain’s operations move staggering amounts of product every day, and its smooth function is what keeps your business going. There is no escaping the costs of running a supply chain;…
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How to Exceed the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Industry Standards
In mid-May of this year, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) finally told consumers it is safe to resume purchasing and eating romaine lettuce following an outbreak of E.coli linked to romaine lettuce products. The reason isn’t that the exact source was found or the outbreak contained, but that the growing season of the region…
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Why Efficient Supply Chain Management Systems Rely on Plastic Pallets
In logistics management, timetables are finely tuned. Grocery and pharma industries depend on just-in-time delivery to get perishable goods to market. The just-in-time approach—pioneered by Toyota—focuses on making or delivering only what is needed, when it is needed, and in only the amounts that are needed. It is a philosophy that frees companies from spending…
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Why Pallets for Automated Storage and Retrieval Systems Should Be Plastic
The pace of business in the grocery and pharma industries is relentless. Meeting the standards of consumers and regulators means constantly refining processes to increase efficiency. But sometimes maintaining the required productivity and accuracy is beyond the capabilities of mere mortals, particularly in the warehouse. For this reason, many companies are choosing Automated Storage and…
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How to Increase the Average Fuel Mileage for Semi-Trucks
Lately, as you pay the fuel bills for your shipping fleet or negotiate with your carriers, you may find that the prices leave you with a headache. Transportation costs are rising across the supply chain and are higher than they’ve been in a long time. In the transportation industry, there’s currently a perfect storm of…
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Standard GMA Pallet Dimensions: Why 48″x40″ Uniformity Matters
If you work in logistics you know how important standardization is. It allows equipment separated by thousands of miles to handle the same materials without difficulty or downtime. Standards across markets are quite literally what make global trade possible. If your company is operating in North America, then you likely use a 48-by-40-inch pallet that…
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Sustainable Supply Chain Management: The Case for Recyclable Plastic Pallets
In the 1960s, when the environmental movement first began, environmentalists and businessmen were mortal enemies. After all, the modern environmental movement coalesced when Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring pointed a finger at the chemical industry. Today, sustainability is a common topic of discussion around conference rooms in nearly every industry. The plain fact–one that companies…