Craemer plastic pallets in usage at the Marquardt Company

Paul Craemer GmbH of Herzebrock Clarholz, maufacturer of plastic pallets, and Marquardt of Rietheim-Weilheim, supplier of automotive parts, have been engaged in a succesful business relationship for many years. Marcquardt currently uses around 5000 plastic paletts purchased from the Herzebrock Company.

Marquardt is a family Company in Rietheim-Weilheim in Swabia which has been developing, manufacturing and supplying switches and switch systems for more than 75 years. What was once a “special factory for electrical articles and precision engineering” is now a group with more than 2800 employees. Marquardt has become a European market leader supplying the industries for household equipment, electronic and electric tools and the automobile industry.

Plastic pallets have been on Marquardt’s agenda since the mid-80’s. It all started with a technical problem: The new conveyor belts were not able to transport the wooden paletts conveying the products from the factory to the stockrooms. Marquardt investigated alternative load carriers and made his first contact with Paul Craemer. After intensive consultations and test-runs Marquardt’s first plastic pallet, the reddish brown S 5BL was brought into service. This pallet made of HDPE was tried out first in the stockroom, whereby the products were transported from the factory on wooden pallets and then transferred to the S 5BL plastic pallets. The introduction of plastic pallets to the Company was accompanied by yet another innovation. Up till then wooden pallets had been rented from a pallet pool. This was changed by the introduction of plastic pallets, which now came under the ownership of the Marquardt Company.

Soon after this the use of small load carriers made it necessary to select another plastic pallet type. First it seemed that this demand was already met quite nicely by the Euro H1 palette. However this is the standard pallet for the food and meat industry and for this reason meets the highest possible hygenic demands, which were not necessary for the Marquardt Company. Therefore the economical alternative, the regenerated edition of the Euro H1 – the so-called H1-R - was chosen. In September 1999, as a result of alterations to the stockrooms, some additional HR1 pallets were purchased on which KLT’s as well as cardboard packaging are transported today. If desired the pallets can be milled to enable the attachment of folding tops. The H1-R fulfills all conditions for use in stockrooms with high shelves or on automatic conveyor belts.

Another major reason for the introduction of plastic pallets was cleanliness – for Marquardt always a very important production factor. The dirt caused by the use of wooden pallets in the stockrooms disappeared as soon as the plastic pallets were introduced, and the manufacture and storage of products became practically dust-free and dirt-free. For this reason  - according to Marquardt  - the Company is well able to stand up to the strict directives imposed by the automobile industry. Another advantage of plastic pallets is that they don’t damage the highly sensitive floor covering in the factory with its delicate  conductive surface as did the clumsy wooden pallets.The lightness and simplicity in handling the plastic pallets is not just a question of ease and comfort, but staff safety has increased considerably since they were introduced. The decrease in danger of injury to employees has a lot to do with the light weight of the pallets. A plastic pallet weighs only 15 kg. in comparison to a wet wooden pallet which can weigh up to 25 kg.

Marquardt has more than 5000 Craemer plastic pallets in usage today and the Company informs us that they have no loss at all due to faulty or broken pallets. In fact they are entirely free of repair and servicing. Looking at the plastic pallets from an economical point of view Marquardt is able to register an excellent cost-benefit relation. With a usage of over 10 years Marquardt has only investment costs to book. However the purchase of equipment such as plastic pallets today should not so much be influenced by the initial investment costs as by the many advantages to be gained by their usage. In making economic comparisons between various pallet systems not only the initial purchase price should be considered but also the running costs for the total “lifetime” of the pallet.

As the supplier market has not yet organized a well-developped exchange system for plastic pallets the pallets in Marquardt’s Company are used in a closed circuit. This means that they either go in a circle between the individual subsidiary Companies, e.g.  the Tunisian assembly plant or I individual cases shuttle to and fro between Marquardt and his suppliers.
The Craemer plastic pallet could no longer be missed at  Marquardt’s: It has proved to have the following strong points: it’s clean, can carry big loads, has a long life-time, is easy to handle and economical. day in, day out.

Published in the following journals:
"FM Fracht + Materialfluss", Logistik-Magazin, "Lagertechnik", Special-edition of the "Fördermittel Journal"

Paul Craemer GmbH
Brockerstraße 1
D-33442 Herzebrock-Clarholz 
Germany
Fon: +49 (0) 5245/43-0
Fax: +49 (0) 5245/43-201
e-mail: info@craemer.de