Raw materials are the largest cost component in pallet manufhcturing. The primary raw material used to produce pallet parts are pallet cants. Therefore, pallet cant quality directly impacts pallet part processing and material costs. By knowing the quality of the cants being processed, pallet manufacturers can predict these costs and improve manufacturing efficiency. The purpose of this study wa...

In multi-station assembly systems, common for mass-customization manufacturing strategies, the product being assembled is held in a fixture attached to a pallet, and the pallet is conveyed between workstations. In high-precision assembly systems, variation in the position of the pallet is one of the largest sources of variation within the error budget, reducing quality and yields. Conventional ...

Ultrasonic scanning experiments were conducted for detecting defects in wood pallet parts using rolling transducers. The characterization of defects is important for sorting and grading pallet parts, as well as for manufacturing quality and durable pallets. This paper reports the scanning results for stringers and deckboards – the two main components of pallet for red oak and yellow-poplar spec...

Low back disorders in distribution centres or warehouses have been identified as an area of elevated risk in many industries. The task of an order selector requires workers manually to lift boxes from storage bins to a mobile pallet. This study explored the effect of box features and box location when lifting from a pallet in a storage bin upon spine loading. Ten experienced warehouse workers w...

Image processing techniques are widely used to detect defects in industrial equipment. In this paper, an online system is presented to detect bending in pallet cars of a travelling grate conveyor used in sintering machines. If bending in several pallet cars exceeds a specified limit, it can stop the production line. Therefore, an early and precise diagnosis is required. The system consists of a...

The detailed performance comparison of four orthogonal transforms for grayscale image colorization using Thepade’s Transform Error Vector Rotation(TTEVR) algorithm is done here with five different color pallet sizes. The Thepade’s transform error vector rotation algorithms use binary numbers represented by four error vector sequences (Haar, Cosine, Slant & Hartley). The proposed technique uses ...

Flexible assembly systems use conveyors to transfer products through a series of workstations. The product being assembled is typically held in a fixture mounted on top of a pallet. Conventional approaches for locating the pallets often use precision ground pins and bushings for location. This technique requires clearance between the pin and bushings to accommodate manufacturing variation and p...

Palletizers are widely used in delivery industry. We consider a large palletizer where each stacker crane grabs a bin from one of k conveyors and position it onto a pallet located at one of p stack-up places. All bins have the same size. Each pallet is destined for one customer. A completely stacked pallet will be removed automatically and a new empty pallet is placed at the palletizer. The FIF...

This paper presents new bounds, heuristics, and an exact algorithm for the Pallet Loading Problem (PLP). PLP maximizes the number of boxes placed on a rectangular pallet. All boxes have identical rectangular dimensions and, when placed, must be located completely within the pallet. Boxes may be rotated 90 so long as they are placed with edges parallel to the pallet’s edges. The set of all PLP i...

Curve sawing is a primary log breakdown process that incorporates gang-saw technology to allow two-sided cants from logs with sweep to be cut parallel to the log surface or log axis. Since curve-sawn logs with sweep are cut along the grain, the potential for producing high quality straight-grain lumber and cants increases, and strength, stiffness, and dimensional stability are maximized. Presen...