By Noah Roh, Precise Pallet Management
Pallet pooling is dominated in the Asia Pacific region by two heavy hitters: CHEP and Loscam. Between the two of them, they dominate the sector. Both were founded in the 1940s and have stood the test of time. To answer the question posed in the title of this article, CHEP and Loscam pallets are pool (rental, hire) pallets offered by the respective companies.
The Methods Behind CHEP and Loscam
CHEP’s blue pallets are widely used across the world, with hundreds of millions of wooden pallets in their network and presence in 6 continents. CHEP offers a consistent supply that connects multiple parties across a standardized supply chain to improve efficiency and cost.
The safety yellow or red Loscam pallet is the alternative. They are almost equally as popular in a range of industries in Australia, New Zealand, East, and Southeast Asia. Managing more than 18 million pallet movements each year, Loscam develops products that complement its pallet pool to improve performance in the movement of pallets.
The Masters of Pallet Pooling
Both brands actively support pallet pooling, which helps the industry improve efficiency while at the same time lowering logistic costs. The benefits of pallet pooling include:
- Reduction of wooden packaging ending up in landfill
- Scalable pool, allowing you to simply hire or dehire pallets based on your needs
- Reduced need to store empty pallets during non-peak periods when they are not needed
- Reduced cost of pallet use
- Consistency in the quality of pallets
- Ease of trading with other customers who also use hired equipment
The Differences Between CHEP and Loscam Pallets
After World War II, the US Army left behind handling equipment at military bases scattered across Australia. The Australian government combined this with existing infrastructure to form the Commonwealth Handling Equipment Pool, or CHEP.
Loscam was founded in the 1940s with a business based on providing forklifts and other rental equipment. However, during the ’50s with pallet renting dominating the business Loscam shifted their focus to pallet hire.
While both CHEP and Loscam virtually offer the same service, there are a few characteristics that make them slightly different from each other. One way that Loscam competes with CHEP is the difference in the wood used. CHEP offers hardwood pallets, which are resistant to decay and do not shatter. Softwood pallets used by Loscam a more lightweight pallet that is easiry to handle manually.
How Much do CHEP and Loscam Pallets Cost?
With pallet pooling, you no longer need to pay for purchasing pallets as a capital expense. Pallet hire cost is invoiced and paid for as an operating expense on a weekly or monthly basis. The price of CHEP and Loscam pallet hire varies largely depending on the number of pallets your business is using and how long the pallets are in your possession. When the pallets are ready to be picked up an estimated price per trip will also apply.
For a warehouse or a trucking company that handles hundreds of pallets each day it can really make a difference if the pallets are mishandled or inaccurately traced. In the end, you could end up losing a significant amount of money on those hundreds of pallets should they not be transferred off or returned to CHEP or Loscam.
Pallet Pooling Management
Whichever pallet supplier you use, competent management of the pallet account is crucial to avoid hefty hire costs. This can be ensured by knowledgeable pallet control management within your company or via an outsourced third party. When you have focused management on pallet control you are safeguarding your business from hidden costs that can arise when hiring pallets.