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22 Pallet C e nt ral • S e ptem be r- O ctobe r 2 0 24 repair lines with vision technology inspection and decision-making," he explained. Paired with a robotic dismantler and urban sawmill from Alliance Automation, the equipment at Niagara Pallet is doing a lot of the "heavy lifting," so to speak. Comparing and contrasting an organization that is paving the way for technology adoption in the industry with one that is eager to invest in more shows just how important innovation is to organizations of all sizes. e journey will look different for every manufacturer, but the most important thing is to get started. Little by little, investing in automation and innovation will lead to better yield, optimized processes, happier employees, and more satisfied customers—no matter the size of the organization. Reimagining The Recycling Process (And More) With buzzwords like "automation," which encompass so many different applications and tools, it can be difficult to grasp how it actually works in a production facility. At Niagara Pallet & Recyclers, a business that collects, sorts, repairs, and resells used pallets, automation has completely transformed the process from start to finish. Historically, their process looked like this: 1. Pallets come in, teams unload the pallets, and they manually inspect each one. 2. e employees then have to sort the pallets into categories. Some will get dismantled and used for parts, others will get repaired, a few will be able to be resold without many changes, and a small percentage will get recycled into mulch or woodchips. 3. After categorization, the team at Niagara would then take the necessary steps to prepare pallets for resale and load them onto the necessary trucks for distribution. As you can see, it's very manual and very tedious. By investing in an automated sort-and-repair line, Vrugteveen was able to alter the process entirely, making it less taxing on his team and improving productivity. Now, nearly every step is automated: 1. Pallets are cingulated and put through the IVISYS inspection system. IVISYS assesses different parameters such as pallet size, configuration, and quality to determine the next step for each pallet. 2. When pallets don't need extra care, they will be stacked for distribution. 3. Pallets that are salvageable will be sent to the repair line. 4. ose that are only good for parts will be sent to the robotic dismantler to be taken apart and sorted by component. 5. If a pallet is not reusable at all, it is sent to the shredder. "e technology isn't perfect yet," admitted Vrugteveen. "But it's getting better every day and being adopted in various formats in our industry. ere's a big opportunity for organizations like ours, but also for large distribution centers to adopt these types of tools." e automation of sorting, repairing, and recycling pallets is just one application of these tools. At Kamps Pallets, brothers Mitchell and Justin Kamps use an Urban Saw Mill line which is an automated trim saw that scans the wood and cuts it into the necessary sizes with ease. "We give the machine a recipe of the exact sizes we want to cut, and it uses that to maximize 22 Pallet C e nt ral • S e ptem be r- O ctobe r 2 0 24 INNOVATION CONT.

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