Issue link: http://palletcentral.uberflip.com/i/713205
palletcentral.com PalletCentral • July-August 2016 21 Hurricane Sandy. "A hurricane like Sandy can result in a great deal of stock that pallet manufacturers could use," FPL's Ritter says. In addition, FPL is also looking to offload a fair quantity of thin trees – 10" in diameter or less – which have proliferated in the nation's forests for decades, and have been major catalyst behind the uptick in forest fires in the U.S. Indeed, culling thin trees from the nation's overcrowded forests has been one of the FPL's key priorities since the early nineties (www.fpl.fs.fed.us/ research/research_ emphasis_areas/introduction. php?rea_id=5). "The increased funding that's been needed for firefighting as a result of these trees is a real problem," says FPL's Ritter. Yet another major benefit of the new working agreement is anticipated research collaboration with FPL with the NWPCA's Pallet Design System™ software (PDS) (www.palletcentral.com), according to John McLeod Director of the Pallet Design System, NWPCA. PDS is an objective tool used by pallet buyers to verify that a pallet maker's specs for a pallet will meet unit load bearing requirements, PDS has been in use since 1984. Continually upgraded since that time, PDS represents the latest data, engineering and research on the relationship between the design and performance of wood pallets. Essentially, PDS enables a user to completely spec a pallet in terms of type, size and style according to a desired wood species – whether the wood species originated from North America, South America or Europe. The PDS also has great use as a pallet marketing tool, offering significant amounts of data and text explanations that can be directly printed out from the software and provided to customers with specific questions about how their pallets will be built. These days, PDS is used by 420 pallet makers in more than 24 countries, according to McLeod. "The new MOU between NWPCA and the USDA Forest Products Lab will lead to very positive technical developments" with the PDS, McLeod says. Meanwhile, FPL's Ritter says the new working relationship between the two organizations should also make it easier for NWPCA members to do business with the federal government in innumerable ways. "Agreements like these signal to other federal agencies that NWPCA has already been vetted as a reliable organization," Ritter says. The new close working relationship is also expected to spur other joint research efforts, Ritter says. "We're looking to put together a list of pallet industry's research needs," he says. One of the other ways the new relationship is expected to benefit NWPCA members will be an anticipated joint push by both organizations related