17/06/05 Rehrig Penn buys service operations of Penn Pallet

Rehrig Penn Inc., a subsidiary of Rehrig Pacific Co., has purchased all of the service-related businesses of Penn Pallet Inc. of St. Mary´s, Pa., including recycling operations.

The acquisition involves asset recovery, pallet management and wood pallet resale activities, according to a statement by Rehrig Penn Inc.

Penn Pallet will retain its two manufacturing facilities in Pennsylvania.

Rehrig Penn also has purchased 50 percent of Penn Pallet´s equity in Penn-Alliance of Charlotte, N.C., a national pallet sales and reclamation cooperative.

Rehrig Pacific, based in Los Angeles, manufactures returnable plastic crates and plastic pallets for transporting food and beverage products.

SME Solutions Forum
Put processes before technology

Work with your technology provider to understand your business processes, and do not simply fall in love with RFID technology, said Toh Eng Keong, chief technology officer, Autoscan Technology.
Tan Ee Sze and Connie Chng

Work with your technology provider to understand your business processes, and do not simply fall in love with RFID technology, said Toh Eng Keong, chief technology officer, Autoscan Technology.

Speaking on the delivery of RFID solutions, Toh advised companies to choose the best technology for each data collection point in the process for that location of the application. “Identify your critical data collection needs and key business processes,” he said.

He cited the example of a successful RFID deployment at The Polyolefin Company, a manufacturer of plastic resins.

Originally, the company had material handlers travel all over the warehouse with a forklift to pick up the goods and place the pallets in an empty location. If the staff went on leave, colleagues would have a hard time locating the goods in the warehouse, which was the size of three football fields.

Autoscan’s solution was to use RFID to track the goods. The tag on the pallet would capture the batch number, date of production and other related information, which is synced to an Oracle backend.

When the goods are picked up, the RFID reader will pick up information from the pallet and update the backend system. The Warehouse Management System will then tell the driver where to put the goods, instead of placing it in any empty space.