Effective Marketing Tool

Some end users think the pallet business is nothing more than banging boards together - PDS© is an effective instrument for helping you change their minds.

PDS© helps raise your image from commodity supplier to unit load consultant. Using this tool to meet your customers' specific needs conveys your commitment to customer service. When your customer's product is riding on a PDS©-designed pallet - it's sustained by 21st century technology.

Lowered Costs

When you design just the right pallet rather than one that is over-engineered, you can reduce material costs. PDS© helps you easily incorporate raw material rate fluctuations. PDS© can be used for an analysis of any wood or wood-based composite. PDS© is now for remanufactured pallets too!! New upgrades allow manufacturers to design pallets with all new lumber, combo pallets with new and recycled lumber or 100% recycled lumber.

Liability Safeguard

When you provide customers with PDS©-designed pallets, you have nearly 20 years of science and technology, research and development underpinning your product.

You are able to provide your customers with documentation for safe and effective usage consistent with customer requirements.

Nuts and Bolts

The Pallet Design System© is based on engineering fundamentals and matrix structural analysis techniques. It is the result of many years of laboratory research and field-testing. NWPCA and the William H. Sardo, Jr. Pallet & Container Research Lab have invested an enormous amount of time and resources to create and enhance this outstanding design and marketing tool.

PDS© can assist in the design of many kinds of pallets:

Two through Five Stringer	2-way or partial 4-way; 4,6 and 9-block	Post-style pallets of any size	Single or double-face	From commonly used wood species-hardwoods, softwoods and mixtures
Single- or double-winged	Single or double cantilever	Flush reversible or non-reversible	Structural wood composite panels	With a full range of parts dimensions
Those made with commonly used fasteners - nails and staples	Rack and stacked storage	Handled with forklifts, floor jacks and slings	To support fully or partially distributed loads; flexible or rigid case goods, bagged goods or block-type loads	Single or multiple concentrated loads - barrels, drums, steel coils

What PDS© can do for your customers:

• Enhance pallet performance.
• Enhance product protection.
• Improve safety for workers throughout the supply chain.
• Reduce material handling costs.
• Help them recognize your company as a unit load consultant and partner.

“When you use PDS©, you have over 20 years of research and development supporting your pallet.”
-Marshall White, Ph.D., Director William H. Sardo, Jr. Pallet & Container Testing Laboratory

Version 3.3

NWPCA is pleased to announce extraordinary innovations to what is already recognized as the wood packaging industry's leading marketing and design tool. PDS© has a new version, 3.3, with features that will expand your ability to serve your customers and attract new ones:

• Custom load types - users can select different custom load types such as boxes, bulk boxes, bags, bulk bags, pails and blocks for better wood pallet designs and more accurate performance predictions.
• Box stacking pattern - single layer, column stacked and interlocked stacked boxes can be selected for better design and more accurate analyses.
• Load stabilizer - the effects of stretch or shrink wrap and horizontal and vertical banding on load flexibility have been incorporated. Vertical banding can either be perpendicular or parallel to pallet length.
• Load-bridging response - long-term creep tests were incorporated in this version to quantify load-bridging response over time.
• Copyright statement - new copyright language has been added to PDS© output to provide more legal protection to all leaseholders.
• Watermark - a translucent mark with company name and license number can now be printed onto all PDS© output.
• A simplified grading specification for pallet components - the new grading system will replace the current 18 grades in PDS©. The objective is to have only one set of pallet component grade that is independent of species and geographical region.

PDS© designers can create stringer or block pallets with many different configurations and deck styles.

Create a design in standard measures or metric - completed designs can be reconfigured from inches to millimeters with a simple click of your computer's mouse.