Bob Trebilcock

Designing the better unit load
April 17, 2008

How many engineers does it take to design a better unit load?

Eight.

That’s how many students are currently earning degrees in a systems-based approach to unit load design at Virginia Tech’s Center for Unit Load Design.

“It’s not many,” says Marshall White, Ph.D., a professor emeritus and former director of the center who created the program. “But it’s a start.”

When they graduate in June of 2009, they’ll bring a unique combination of engineering skills to the market. Think of them as a triple threat, as equally versed in packaging and material handling design as they are in pallet design—the center’s heritage. White also hopes they’ll also further the systems-based approach to unit load design. 

As I wrote on Tuesday, White is preaching a new gospel to supply chain managers and materials handling and packaging engineers he calls a systems-based approach to unit load design. That’s an approach that looks at the interaction between pallets, packaging materials and materials handling equipment to design the optimal load.

The biggest impediment to realizing savings from a systems-based approach to design is that engineers are typically trained in school or on the job in silos—they learn how to design materials handling systems, packaging or pallets. No one teaches them to design all three or to understand the dynamics among the three.

That’s where the Center for Unit Load Design, and its new program, comes into play. Working with an industrial advisory committee that includes representatives from corporate America along with pallet and packaging manufacturers, transportation providers and systems providers, White and his colleagues developed a curriculum to teach a systems-based approach. The first group of students signed on to the program in 2006.

The curriculum includes almost as much instruction in the design and operation of the supply chain as it does in the design of distribution packaging, pallets and unit loads. “Our students are required to design efficient DCs; efficient materials handling systems inside those centers; and to understand how trucks, trailers and containers interact with a unit load as they move through the supply chain,” says White.

Having once manufactured and sold pallets, I certainly understand where White is coming from. Too few of my customers understood—or wanted to understand—their pallet specifications. More importantly, considering the synergies that are gained when warehouse management and transportation management systems are integrated together, getting out of silos makes a lot of sense.

But I think what’s really exciting about the program at Virginia Tech is the recognition by White’s industry advisory board that materials handling counts in a global supply chain. “By guiding what we’re doing here, our industry advisory committee is going to be our first benefactors,” says White. “And we’re going to rely on them to get the message out about the importance of unit load design.”

Posted by Bob Trebilcock on April 17, 2008 | Comments (0)