When Scott Pallets moved from its previous location in the nearby Port of Rosyth, located near Edinburgh, Scotland, the company was looking for opportunities to improve its material flows and create flexibility for future growth.
By 2014, Scott had outgrown the Rosyth facility, and with neighboring businesses also expanding at the busy commercial port, the time was right for the company to relocate to nearby Burntisland.
Forth Ports and Scott Group, parent of Scott Pallets, initially invested several million pounds to develop the six-acre site into a state-of-the-art pallet manufacturing facility. The project included refurbishing the existing building and yard, upgrades to the electricity supply serving the port, improvements to local road infrastructure, relocation of some existing equipment, and installation of new machinery.
Design with Material Flow in Mind
“The move allowed us to create a flagship facility designed around the workflows involving timber arriving from both sea and road routes, maximizing logistics efficiency from inbound material to finished goods,” explained Alan Gibson, managing director at Scott Pallets. At Burntisland (pronounced as Burnt Island), the new pallet plant gate is literally 20 yards from dockside. Loads of lumber from its wholly owned Latvian subsidiary arrive by sea.
Corporately, the Scott Group fills about 30% of its lumber needs from its Latvian subsidiary. “The balance of its timber requirements comes from all of the major U.K. and Irish sawmills including BSW, the UK’s largest sawmilling group, with whom we have long-term relationships.” Gibson stated.
In organizing its timber requirements, the Burntisland site utilizes an eight-week timber forecast that is based on historical sales volume activity, as well as a rolling three-week production plan, which is guided by visible and historical sales information. The company uses both basic and customized Microsoft ERP modules to aid in the planning routine. “But there is also an element of customers ordering at the last minute,” he said. “We want to be very agile and customer-responsive.”
When a vessel arrives, bundles of cut stock are lifted from the boat by small cranes operated by stevedores. They are placed onto trailers that are pulled by yard tractors to the pallet plant. The equipment shunts back and forth until the vessel is unloaded. While the previous location at the Port of Rosyth was relatively close to the dock, it was a busy operation that required significant extra handling and delays in moving material. These extra steps were eliminated by the move to Burntisland.
Once material arrives at the gate, it is set into a 200,000 sq. ft. storage yard adjacent to its 60,000 sq. ft. production facilities. The production plant houses two Cape tandem systems for manufacturing block pallets as well as a Viking Turbo 505 line for stringer pallet units. Manual bench production accounts for approximately 20% to 25% of output, predominantly involving smaller runs and large pallets. The Cape lines typically manufacture the same type of pallet for at least one shift, with an average of eight to 10 set-ups per week. The Viking operates on a made-to-order basis, running batches typically in the 600 to 3,000 pallet range. There are two production shifts, with a total of approximately 55 employees working at the site.
Finished pallets are removed from the end of the system into an adjoining covered storage area. Mobile equipment is restricted within the plant, and pedestrians are restricted from access to the storage yard. “There is very little interaction between people and mobile equipment,” Gibson stated. As a result, he said, there is much less chance of a pedestrian accident.
Pallets requiring heat treatment are situated in close proximity to the site’s two dry kilns. The kilns, as well as the plant itself, are heated by the facility’s biomass plant, which consumes all of the wood residuals from the plant. Company-wide, biomass plants operate at four Scott Group locations, heating a total of 17 dry kilns.
The food and drink sector is a key market segment for Burntisland, which has enjoyed major, long-term partnerships with the Scottish whisky industry, including both heavy duty maturation pallets as well as export Euro pallets. The company also serves the rapidly growing aquaculture (salmon fish farming) and the independent brewing industries.
Emphasis on Proven Partners and Robust, Not-overly Complicated Equipment
The company’s approach to equipment selection is straightforward. According to Gibson, the company’s focus is on working with carefully selected and proven partners. When asked about the decision to go with Cape and Viking at the Burntisland facility, he stated that they are both easy to deal with. “Their machines are not overly complicated and they are robust,” he continued, noting that they have a range of solutions to meet the needs of different levels of production. Scott has Viking Champions at some of its other sites.
“They are reliable,” Gibson continued. “We’ve got Viking equipment up and down the United Kingdom, so if we don’t have a spare part, chances are, we’ll have a spare at another site. And Cape is pretty quick in supplying parts, even though they are based in Spain. They can get parts to you the next day if required.”
Asked about plans for future upgrades, Gibson stated that the company is looking at a few applications. One of those areas is the possibility of robotics or automation to eliminate the manual production of large size pallets or small runs. It is also considering robotics to automate the loading of material for the pallet nailing lines. “We are mainly looking at further automation from a labor retention perspective,” he explained, “trying to make jobs easier. We aren’t really looking at it from a cost saving perspective, although that would be a benefit as well.
“We are trying to reduce manual handling because producing pallets by hand is a fairly heavy job. Anything we can do to reduce that we’ll try, and that’s what we’re looking to for the future.”
For material handling, it is considering the use of robots for feeding blocks into the Cape lines. Robotics to replace current manual assembly represent more of a challenge. Scott Pallets continue to explore its options with various vendors. “So far, we are struggling to find solutions that make sense, that can make pallets fast enough,” Gibson explained.
Growing Emphasis on Pallet Reuse Programs, Converting Single-use Systems
Company-wide, there is an increased emphasis on pallet reuse. Gibson describes pallet reuse programs as a growing and key component of the company’s sustainable pallet solutions strategy. “As timber and waste PRN (Packaging Recovery Note) costs have risen so massively, customers are increasingly motivated to manage their costs and meet environmental objectives around reducing waste through pallet recovery and reuse,” he said.
“The increasing focus and understanding of circular economy principles are also delivering growth opportunities in working with customers whose pallet profiles do not fit with traditional standard pallet pooling services,” he added. While standard size block pallets such as 1200×1000 and 800x1200mm are typically reused, such has not been the case with other pallet footprints and stringer style pallets.
The reuse program has grown since its launch in 2008. In 2017, Scott Pallets recovered over 1.2 million pallets for reuse. The company takes a holistic approach. “Working collaboratively with our customers, our experienced account managers identify opportunities around raw material sourcing, pallet design, manufacture, supply, recovery, repair, reuse, and end of life waste management,” Gibson said.
Communicating Effectively with a Large Staff
As the company has grown, it has broadened its communication efforts. The Scott Group uses a mix of media to facilitate internal communications to its staff of over 1,000 people. That mix includes a monthly newsletter, an internal Facebook group, video, face-to-face business briefings and more.
“You and I can talk together and get a message through,” Gibson stated. “If you have 10 people in a room, it gets a little harder. If you have a second room with another 10 people, it gets a little harder still. That’s why all of these different channels of communication are so important.”
“People are the most important resource we have in the company,” Gibson concluded. “We can’t make pallets without lumber, but we can’t make them without people, for sure. We are a family business, and we have remained a family business through 30 years of growth, and we are proud of that. We want our people to feel that same pride, and the only way to do that is to respect them, to keep them informed about our direction of travel and the goals we have set, and to collectively celebrate the successes of our company.”
