We sell reuse. We also tell automation customers, routinely and without reluctance, that recycled decks are the wrong answer for their conveyor. Both positions are consistent: the point is to put the right pallet in the right place, and automated handling genuinely needs dimensional repeatability that reclaimed wood cannot promise.
What automation actually demands
Conveyors, shuttles, stacker cranes and robotic palletisers locate a pallet by geometry. They assume a bottom deck in a known configuration, a known overall height, square corners and nothing protruding. A pallet that is three-eighths of an inch out of square is irrelevant to a forklift operator and capable of jamming a transfer car.
- Overall height within a tight tolerance, because lift positions are fixed.
- Bottom-deck board positions consistent, because chain conveyors bear on them.
- No protruding fasteners anywhere — the classic cause of a jam.
- Square and flat, every unit, not on average.
- Consistent weight, because some systems check it as a safety interlock.
Why recycled decks struggle
Not strength — geometry. A repaired deck may have a board of slightly different thickness, a companion stringer adds width in one place, and sixteen years of service rounds corners unevenly. Every one of those is harmless in manual handling and a risk in a machine that expects identical objects.
The hybrid that usually works
Run new, jig-built pallets inside the automated envelope and recycled stock everywhere else — inbound receiving, outbound after de-palletising, yard storage, site transfers. Most automated operations touch only a fraction of total pallet movements, and buying new for the whole estate because one aisle is automated is an expensive reflex.
If you must use recycled in automation
It is occasionally possible with a dedicated screening step: a pool graded specifically to automation tolerances, checked on a jig, and rotated out at the first repair. We can supply that, and we will tell you honestly that the screening cost narrows the saving considerably. For most sites, new inside the envelope is the better answer.
Written at the Meeks Blvd yard, St. Louis, and published on January 14, 2025. Markets and specifications move; if a figure here no longer matches what you are seeing, tell us and we will update it. Our model constants live on the Carbon Ledger.
How this was written
Drafted at the grading line from our own weighbridge records, line notes and customer correspondence. Figures quoted as ours are measured; figures quoted from the wider industry are labelled as estimates. Nothing here was written to rank for a search term, and we correct articles rather than quietly deleting them.
- Author
- Yard desk
- Published
- January 14, 2025
- Category
- Operations
- Reviewed
- Annually, with the model constants
- Corrections to
- sales@repalletshop.com
What to do with this
- Check the figures against your own invoices before acting on them.
- Ask us for the underlying scale tickets if you need audit evidence.
- Send the article to whoever owns your pallet spec — most of this is their decision.
- Disagree in writing. Several of these pieces exist because a customer corrected us.
How to cite
Yard desk, “What changes when you automate: pallets and AS/RS”, Repallet Shop, January 14, 2025. repalletshop.com/blog/pallets-and-automation