Conveyor hang-ups
A plate edge standing even slightly proud catches roller and chain conveyors. On an automated line this is a stoppage, and stoppages in automated facilities are expensive per minute.
Yard notes · 3 September 2024
Why we stopped using metal plates in 2011
In short
A steel plate nailed across a cracked stringer restores some bending strength quickly and cheaply. It also introduces a hard, sharp metal edge into a wood structure that will be handled thousands of times. Plates catch on conveyors, tear stretch film, cut hands, damage product, and are explicitly rejected by most grocery and automotive receivers. We stopped applying them in 2011 and we do not accept them inbound.
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Why plates exist at all
Because they are fast. A cracked stringer takes a trained technician a couple of minutes to plug properly — cut the plug, glue it, nail it, let it set. A plate takes eleven seconds and a nail gun. On a bench measured by units per hour, that difference is enormous, and it is the entire reason the practice survives.
The structural argument is not absurd either. A correctly applied plate does bridge a crack and does restore a meaningful proportion of bending strength. If a pallet were a static object that nobody touched, plating would be defensible.
What actually goes wrong
Film and strap damage
Stretch film runs across the pallet base. A plate edge cuts it, containment force drops, and the load arrives leaning — and the pallet gets blamed for something the plate did.
Hand injuries
Pallets are handled manually far more than people admit. A plate corner that has lifted is a laceration waiting for somebody reaching under a deck.
Product damage
In automotive and appliance work, a plate contacting a painted surface is a quality incident with a corrective action attached to it.
Receiver rejection
Most grocery DCs and automotive plants reject plated pallets outright. A load of them becomes a return trip at somebody's cost.
Recycling contamination
Plates survive dismantling and reach the grinder, where they damage knives and end up as metal in mulch. This is why nails belong in a magnet stream and plates belong nowhere.
The alternative takes two minutes
A shaped hardwood plug, glued and nailed into the void left by a fork puncture, restores bending strength across the break with no foreign material in the structure. It grades as B rather than A because it is visible, and it is entirely appropriate for floor-stacked and general distribution use. For a full-length crack, a companion stringer sandwiches the failure and is structurally excellent, though it drops the unit to #2.
Both use harvested hardwood from our own dismantling line, so the repair consumes nothing new. Both are slower than a plate. Both are why our benches are measured on rework rate rather than units per hour.
Appendix: the data behind this
Every piece on this site closes with the slice of our operating record that bears on what it argues. The full record is published at /resources/operating-record.
Rejections, including prior-repair defects
Companion stringers and plates from earlier repairs accounted for 5.2% of rejections. We accept companions at #2. Plates we reject, inbound and outbound.
- Cracked or split stringer34.2%
Almost always at a notch. The single most common structural failure we see.
- Missing or broken deck board26.8%
Lead boards over interior boards by roughly two to one — they take the fork impact.
- Shiner / protruding fastener11.4%
Refastened and returned to the line in most cases. A rejection regardless of grade.
- Moisture above 19% or mould bloom10.1%
Heavily seasonal. 18.9% of March rejections; 4.2% of July rejections.
- Contamination, staining or odour7.3%
Pulled by a person at the intake belt, before any downstream process.
- Companion stringer or plate from a prior repair5.2%
We accept companions as #2. Metal plates we reject outright, inbound and outbound.
- Dimensional variance outside tolerance3.1%
Diverted to non-automation stock rather than scrapped.
- Pest damage or exit holes1.9%
Segregated immediately. Never enters the export or studio stream.