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36 Pallet C e nt ral • S e ptem be r- O ctobe r 2 0 26 CDS UPDATE BY MICHELLE TORELLI Crate Design System Celebrates Launch, Sets Sights On The Classroom And Beyond W oodpack Global members gathered on July 21 to mark a milestone years in the making: the official launch celebration of the Crate Design System™ (CDS), the industry's newest purpose-built engineering tool for wooden crate and industrial wood packaging design. For an industry that has long relied on the Pallet Design System™ (PDS) as its gold standard, CDS represents the next chapter—a dedicated platform built on the same principle that made PDS indispensable: put a rigorous, easy-to-use design tool directly into the hands of the people building crates every day. CDS 1.0 is intentionally focused. e current release covers two of the most widely used construction types—sheathed and cleated crates, and basic lumber box crates—replacing manual, drafting, and hand-calculation workflows with software- guided design grounded in accepted industry best practices. It's a deliberate first step: prescriptive guidance now, with performance-based structural analysis to follow as the platform matures. A Tool With Its Sights On Students Few people have thought as hard about what CDS could mean for the next generation of packaging professionals as Dr. Laszlo Horvath of Virginia Tech's Center for Packaging and Unit Load Design. Horvath, who chairs the ASTM D1185 working group and holds the ISTA Packaging Dynamics Professional (PDP) certification, sees real opportunity in putting a tool like CDS in front of students. "CDS gives students access to a real engineering tool, not just a textbook exercise," Horvath said. "at's a huge opportunity for how we prepare the next generation of packaging professionals." A Plaorm Built To Last CDS isn't a commercial product chasing quarterly returns. It is industry-owned and member-directed, funded by the Pallet Foundation with donations, and shaped by the producers who use it. at model is exactly what turned PDS into a world- class success, and it's the foundation the CDS team is building on again. Kristen DeLack, Principal Engineer and project manager of the Crate Design System sees that ownership structure as central to the success of the project. "CDS is being built by and for the people who actually design crates," DeLack said.

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