A MULTI-CRITERIA DECISION ANALYSIS APPROACH TO PALLET SELECTION: DEVELOPMENT OF A MATERIAL-OF-CONSTRUCTION EVALUATION MODEL

Chama Chama,Jean Mulopo,Paul Chego,Kevin Harding

doi:10.7166/32-3-2614

Chama Chama, Jean Mulopo + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.7166/32-3-2614

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Abstract

Although pallets have traditionally been constructed from wood, there has been a shift towards making them from plastic and other composite materials. Subsequently, the storage and transportation industry has been inundated with questions about ‘the best’ pallet material type in relation to a supply chain. In addition, in a rapidly changing global manufacturing and storage environment, industry players have difficulty justifying the high capital cost of adopting new state-of-the-art pallets. This paper seeks to build a model to identify the best pallet material-of-construction (MOC) as perceived by the end consumer. The approach used for this was based on different stages of building an assistive multi-criteria decision model. This included modelling the decision framework using the analytic hierarchy process and undertaking an independent case study as the baseline for the modelling.

Highlights

A pallet is a “portable, rigid platform used as a base for assembling, storing, stacking, handling and transporting goods” [1]
This paper aims to provide an understanding of how decision-support tools may help to improve performance by ensuring that the optimum pallet solution is selected
They are referred to as alternatives, and each is denoted by the letter A and a subscript indicating the MOC (AWOOD, APP+HDPE, and APP respectively where plastic pallet (PP) indicates polypropylene, and HDPE refers to High-density polyethylene)

Summary

Introduction

A pallet is a “portable, rigid platform used as a base for assembling, storing, stacking, handling and transporting goods” [1]. Plastic pallets have increased their market share, primarily because they are durable and recyclable This growing trend away from wood towards other materials makes it important to optimise pallet selection for a given supply chain or industry. Decision-support tools in industry normally focus on the management of supply chains, as they help to assess the impact that changes can have on a system prior to their implementation [10]. These support tool strategies can help to find optimum solutions for pallets as they interact with various kinds of equipment in a specific supply chain network (SCN)

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