Faced with increasingly challenging cant cutting issues and limited space in its Memphis location, The Pallet Factory turned to Profile Technology for help. Known for its tooling expertise, Profile Technology switched out traditional planer knives for its indexable cutting insets that allowed The Pallet Factory to achieve the results it needed to handle increasingly odd-sized cants.
The Pallet Factory is a large pallet manufacturer and recycler headquartered in Memphis Tennessee. The company also operates a facility in Nashville. Looking at its lumber procurement process, The Pallet Factory shut down an independent sawmill it operated in Senatobia, Mississippi and switched to a Brewer gang saw system that would be run out of its Memphis facility. This line would process cants as the company stopped processing logs. Wes Doyle, the vice president of operations of The Pallet Factory, explained, “Having the sawmill at a separate location made it difficult to manage. We decided to buy this equipment and run the cut up operation on site where we could keep eyes on it all the time making the process easier to manage.”
Toward the end of 2012, The Pallet Factory installed this Brewer gang line that has worked perfectly processing mostly mixed hardwoods, predominantly oak. As lumber markets have heated up causing the supply to become more variable in terms of material dimensions, the cant line has run into problems.
Doyle stated, “The ideal situation would have been to put a cant sizer in front of our gang saw so that we could reclaim an extra board. But we just didn’t have space to do that.”
He added, “The bog down at the gang saw was there at the planer. The unique challenge for us was real estate. We had run out of space in our mill. The second challenge was our cant suppliers. They are cutting our cants a little bit thicker than we would have liked.”
If the material had been standard 4x6s or 3-7/8ths, there would have been no problem. But competition for raw materials meant the cants kept coming in all across the board in terms of size. Some were 4.5 inches up to five inches. Doyle commented, “Trying to plane those down to 3-3/4 or 3-1/2, was virtually impossible. To compensate we had to slow the machine way down, which was killing our production.”
Developing Custom Cutting and Tooling Solutions for Pallet and Lumber Facilities
The Pallet Factory solicited the engineering and design assistance of Profile Technology, which has become a leader in tooling, knives and cutters for the pallet and low-grade lumber industries.
John Lieber, the president of Profile Technology, said, “We have flexibility with our indexable heads. We try to modify the design to efficiently meet the needs of our customers to increase output.”
The challenge facing The Pallet Factory was not something that Profile Technology usually dealt with so the supplier had to develop a unique solution.
Profile Technology exchanged the traditional planer knife approach with indexable cutter heads. Wayne Hader, the maintenance manager at the Memphis plant for The Pallet Factory, explained, “The planer knives work by cutting away the lumber all at one time. It is a big horizontal knife that takes a bite out of the lumber all at once. This puts stress on the motor, especially the deeper the cut. One solution is to slow your feed rate way down, which lowers production. But with an indexable cutter, each head is spaced in a sequential, rotational pattern along the cylinder so that each cutter cuts sequentially, removing part of the material through multiple cuts, which reduces the stress on the motor.”
Hader suggested that the indexable cutter design allows for a deeper cut and cuts through material faster, similar to how pallet operations cut through a notch in a stringer. The end result is a faster, cleaner cut. Hader added, “The indexable cutter has allowed us to almost double our feed rate. The typical planer takes off an 1/8, 3/8 of an inch, we can take off ¾ even up to an inch with the spiral cut, indexable planer technology.”
A secondary benefit of the new process is longer blade life. With traditional planer knives you have to replace them every two weeks according to Hader. By contrast, indexable carbide cutters last much longer, on average about four weeks and for this application as much as 8-10 weeks under ideal conditions.
Hader boasted, “We can stay in operation longer without having to shut down and replace tooling. We have more than doubled our tooling life.”
And the reality is that with the traditional planer knives, you can only sharpen them so many times before replacing them, but the new cutters last longer. The initial cost of the cutters are more but given the improved productivity and reduced downtime due to blade replacement and maintenance costs, Wes concluded the total cost is about the same over time.
The Pallet Factory has been running the new cutter heads since April 2014. Doyle proclaimed, “From the initial engineering of the solution to the delivery and the follow through, Profile Technology has delivered great service.”
Dealing with such a unique challenge, Profile Technology had to re-design the cutter heads after the initial design would jam sometimes. Doyle praised, “Profile Technology did everything above and beyond what we asked them to do. They walked us through every step of it. And Brewer was right there with us too. All of this equipment is top-notch equipment. This situation is unique to us.”
Key Parameters in Maximizing Cutting Technology
When it comes to making the right cut, Profile Technology offers complete custom engineering services to develop the right solution.
There are a number of key variables that come into play. These include feed rate of the machine, the depth of cut you want to make, the horsepower limitation of the saw, the number of wings used in the cutter configuration, the hardness of inserts, the amperage of the motor and the type of wood being cut. By making changes in these various places, you can alter the situation significantly.
The Pallet Factory decided to go with a new cutting design because the horsepower and amperage of the motor couldn’t realistically be improved much and the quality of the material was too variant. One place where adjustments were made was the number of inserts or wings per cutter segment. Profile Technology’s custom designed sizer head allowed The Pallet Factory to maintain longer tool life in different cutting environments: deeper cuts, faster feeds, etc.
David Lieber, project manager for Profile Technology, explained, “Good communication is paramount to the design process. Wayne Hader was instrumental in keeping good records and getting additional information needed to achieve the larger goals of a more efficient head design that added to the company’s bottom line.”
Some experimentation is still going on as they work together to extend the life of the inserts. Hader explained, “We are still in an experimental stage as far as the Profile Technology inserts. They come in different hardness. And we are testing to see how different hardness affect the planer head. If we find a better hardness setting, we may be able to achieve 5-6 weeks life out of each insert.”
Upgrading The Pallet Factory
Beyond the Brewer gang saw added in 2012, the company added a new notcher complete with a custom conveying system designed by Paul Avery of Brewer.
Doyle commented, “Previously, we stacked finished stringers by hand. Brewer designed a conveyor system that comes out of the notcher and feed into a M2L stacker, now the process is automated, which allowed us to reduce the manpower needed.”
The conveying system combined with the notcher doubled production and allowed the company to remove two men from the process. Doyle exclaimed, “The Brewer notcher and custom conveying system was a real life saver for us.”
Addressing a longtime need, The Pallet Factory has on order a new Cresswood 70 series grinder for disposing of wood waste. For years, the company has been incinerating waste and will now be able to grind this material into chips for selling to various customers.
Doyle admitted, “This is something we have needed to do for a long time. We have been watching waste go up in smoke. This new grinder will generate revenue, make us a greener company and allow me to sleep easier at night knowing we don’t have such as great of a fire risk once we eliminate incineration.”
Increasingly pallet companies are moving away from incinerators due to the fire risk. Doyle stated that his company had a horrible fire in 2005 and that making this change was a long time in coming.
In its nailing plant, The Pallet Factory runs two Viking Champion nailers and three Viking Turbo 505 tandem nailing systems in its Memphis location. The company has added a mat kit to one of its Viking Champion machines that make the process of building block pallets easier. Currently, The Pallet Factory only produces about 10,000 block pallets per month. Although the number is small, the company expects it will grow.
Doyle explained, “I do think we will see more block pallet demand in the future, which is one of the reasons we got the mat kit for the Viking Champion.”
The Memphis facility currently has a nail on the fly MSI repair line that was installed in 1998 and is looking to upgrade to newer technology.
Changing Business Landscape
The Pallet Factory enjoys the blessing of being located in the middle of one of the largest distribution hubs in the world. Thanks primarily to hosting the FEDEX World HUB, which processes about 2.2 million packages per day, Memphis has become a key distribution location. The region is also centrally located close to a day’s drive from many major metropolitan centers across the United States.
Doyle stated, “Core supply problem hasn’t been as bad in the Memphis area as some other parts of the country because it is such a major distribution hub. But right now this time of year, supply is still tight. Throughout the year, we have been okay when everyone else I talked to around the country has been out of pallets.”
Currently, The Pallet Factory’s production is split about 55% for new pallets and 45% for used pallets. Over the past few years, the company has shifted more to producing odd-sized pallets and specialty packaging. Doyle explained, “We have started to focus a bit more toward specialty items. Although these items are lower volume they result in higher profits.”
One big boom to the company’s business has been its involvement with PALNET, a network of independent recyclers across the country allowing individual locations to help service the regional business of national accounts.
Doyle commented, “PALNET has been a great partnership for us. PALNET has brought a lot of good accounts to our company, including customers with good core supplies. It was a good business decision for my dad to be a part of the PALNET network.”
Three big takeaways from The Pallet Factory. You have to be looking at your production bottlenecks and work to develop solutions to increase productivity, especially as raw material becomes more variable. Secondly, you need to upgrade processes to save labor and improve the throughput of your entire line. Look for places where adding one machine can make big difference. And finally, consider grouping up with other pallet companies to offer service to larger customers. There are a number of alliances or networks out there that have formed. And maybe you need to develop the next one? In this increasingly competitive environment, having scale and national service will be important.
Oh, and the most important lesson of all, work with quality suppliers, such as Profile Technology because they can help you engineer solutions that may not be readily available now.
