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Pallet C e nt ral • May -Ju ne 2 0 24 19 A fter clocking into their job at the warehouse, a valued employee in the wooden pallet manufacturing industry can be asked to complete a myriad of tasks. Sometimes, those tasks look like sorting out different sizes of pallets and organizing them into the right categories. Other times, it can be moving pallets from one section of the warehouse to another, getting them ready to be loaded onto trucks and shipped to a customer. Whatever that employee is asked to do, chances are, it's going to involve a lot of manual labor. With cutting-edge automation tools and robots designed to take over redundant, difficult tasks, manufacturers can paint a new reality for their employees. Instead of the wear-and-tear of manual labor and heav y lifting being burdened on people, it can be pushed onto robots. Despite these obvious wins, the industry has been notoriously slow to adopt automation when compared to other industries. But, after sitting down with a few industry experts—Brian Glass, the VP of Operations at AMS, and Kevan Grinwis of AMS— it's clear that the hard push toward automation isn't going any where. And if manufacturers are smart, they won't let this moment pass them by. "is industry has survived and thrived for so long because of manual labor. So now, it's hard for industry professionals to see a different reality moving forward. e way the work is being done might work for now, but in order to achieve scale, enhance safety, improve production statistics, and support the workforce of the future, manufacturers have no choice but to invest in automation," admitted Kevan. e journey is long enough without errors and issues along the way. To ensure the smoothest path to the future of wooden pallet manufacturing, understanding current trends, focusing on labor priorities, assessing the total cost and return, and avoiding common pitfalls should be at the forefront of every professional 's mind. Manufacturing-Related Automation Trends Utilizing automation tools in different manufacturing settings is not a new concept, but by understanding the specific ways that automation is changing the wooden pallet manufacturing industry, leaders can start to understand how their organizations might experience the shift. When it comes to key production activities, automation is taking center stage in two main ways: cobots and oddball pallet sorting. Cobots—which stands for "collaborative robots"—work with their human counterparts to streamline production processes, reduce manual labor demands, and cultivate a safer working environment for everyone involved. Instead of asking a human employee to pick up individually cut blocks and put them on a pallet for transport, a robot can own the task of lifting cut blocks and placing them on the pallets. By allowing robots to do a lot of the "heav y lifting"—literally— manufacturers can protect their valued employees and speed up the time in which the blocks can be moved to the right places.

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