Evaluation of Slipsheets for Unitized Shipment of Groceries in Trailers

Excerpts from the report: This study is part of a continuing research program of the Agricultural Marketing Service, designed to find more efficient and less costly methods for handling agricultural products from producer to consumer. An estimated 70 percent of the grocery receipts arrive at the food distribution warehouse by truck. While the volume of receipts at the truck dock has grown, productivity has lagged behind that experienced at the rail dock. Unitized shipment on pallets in railcars replaced handstacked shipment when pallet-exchange programs and free return of empty pallets made this system less costly. Now unitized shipment on slipsheets is replacing pallets in railcars because of the mounting cost of pallet repairs and pallet-exchange problems. The first objective of this study was to measure the cost of slipsheet shipment and compare the results with conventional shipment by handstacking and pallet loading and unloading. A second objective was to determine the most efficient method of loading and unloading trailers using slipsheets as unit loads. For example, should the product be placed on slipsheets with a clamp-lift truck (a forklift truck with an attachment to pick up and transport unit loads with squeeze-type pressure plates), or should the product be on slipsheets and loaded into the trailer with a forklift having a push-pull attachment? Time and cost standards were developed in two supplier plants for loading trailers, one using the slipsheet attachment and the other using the clamp attachment, and in two wholesale food warehouses on trailer unloading that received five or more trailerloads on slipsheets daily for more than 1 year. The labor studies for loading include all activities from the supplier plant-dock staging area to the completion of loading and include labor to secure either the unit load or the total trailerload.