Slipsheet Handling

Slipsheets provide packagers an innovative solution. Slipsheets offer palletless handling of unitized goods, using push/pulls is more economical and can reduce damage to goods. Slipsheet push/pull handling systems are more advantageous and cheaper than the use of traditional pallets.

Push/Pull Handling Systems

Slipsheets are a key component to Push/Pull Handling Systems. A slipsheet is a thin, corrugated, solid fiber or a plastic sheet that replaces wooden pallets. The second component to a push/pull handling system is uses a special attachment that is mounted on the front of fork lift trucks.

Slipsheet Applications

While the Applications for slipsheets are growing at a steady rate, the majority of shipping firms still see wooden pallets as being synonymous with unitized shipping and handling. There is little information available about the use of slipsheets, which brings no surprise to the new generations of shippers and logistics managers coming into the industry with little awareness of what a slipsheet is, and where slipsheets are used an alternative unitized shipping method.

Slipsheets grow in popularity

As new applications continue to appear worldwide, paper slipsheet manufacturers are reporting steady growth in annual sales of 10% or more. Over 150 million paper slipsheets are produced annually.

Slipsheet Advantages

Slipsheets have advantages and disadvantages as do wooden pallets. However when slipsheets were used in applications, the advantages more than outweighed the disadvantages. The main advantages are:

Paper slipsheets are made of a light-weight paperboard, which on average One British Pound Sterling or less per unit-load meaning paperboard slipsheets are for single use. With a slipsheet the costs of tacking, recovering and repairs incurred for a wooden pallet are not required for slipsheets. Slipsheets are also environmentally friendly as they can be easily assimilated into the wastepaper markets for recycling into new products.

Slipsheets are Space Savers

Slipsheets occupy lesser space than pallets, even when under a unit-load a slipsheet takes up 10% less space than a typical pallet. Infact the space occupied by slipsheets allows for an increase in the unitized payload of product by 10. In other words, where a freight load requires 100 containers for shipments on pallets, can be shipped in 90 containers when using slipsheets.

Slipsheets can save you money!

Slipsheets can be used economically to provide a unitized loading and unloading method for lightweight products that cannot be economically shipped on pallets due to lightweight transportation penalties.

Where can a slipsheet be used?

Some of the early applications for slipsheets were used for reducing long term storage of unit loads on pallets of tinned products in the food industry and also soft drinks from the beverages industry, to avoid large investment costs in pallets during the seasons. Slipsheets are now a popular choice throughout the food industry and are widely used in large manufacturers for long haul shipping operations to avoid costly pallet exchange programs.

The problems of pallet repair and the sanitation of reused pallets gave further impetus to the manufacturers’ changeover to slipsheets. Since the use of slipsheets it was found that the higher density payloads in many shipments was possible, which also resulted in reduced transportation costs.