Research and development for the half pallet provides information about the interest in and design desired for the company to act on but those efforts will be fruitless without proper manufacturing processes. Analyzing likely production output, cycle times, potential delays and facility layout will help to improve the manufacturing process and efficiency to an end of increasing company profit, due to reduced cost, and customer value.
Cycle Time and Meeting Customer Demand Introducing a pallet into the pooled industry will initially require a much higher cycle time until the fleet is adequate to meet demand. After equilibrium between demand and fleet availability is reached, those pallets coming back from retailers will be remanufactured requiring only damaged components to be replaced and reducing production cycle time greatly. During the initial manufacturing stage it is necessary to consider the total number of pallets likely needed to meet demand. Using results from 2015 finds that over 700 million pooled pallets were utilized throughout the year in North American, of which PECO held 12% market share, with 10% of overall demand being from half pallets (Cohen, 2015). If this holds market share and overall demand for half pallets holds steady, with the release of the PECO half pallet, then there will
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The basis of this strategy is to build capacity in anticipation of demand growth. The pooled pallet is perfect for this aggressive strategy steadily due to the increasing demand for them throughout the market. With the introduction of the half pallet it is necessary to be aggressive to capture market share and having inventory available and ready for delivery is an excellent way to gain pallet customers for whom lack of pallet availability leads to down time and increased