It's something you just don't think about: pallets.

But consider this from Bruce Scholnick, president of the National Wooden Pallet & Container Association:

"If it was boxed or bagged or packaged, and at some point it was moved from point A to point B, then 93 percent of the time it was moved on a pallet."

That's something Clint Binley thinks about all the time. He's president of Pallets Inc., a 66-year-old company in Fort Edward that makes pallets.

If Binley and, before him, his father and grandfather, hadn't been adept at change, then their company might not be around today, let alone selling nearly $7 million a year in pallets.

The pallet-making business is highly competitive, and economic forces keep conspiring against companies like Binley's. Pallets Inc. which has had to cope with a loss of customers as manufacturing plants close or move and with a loss of lumber sources as sawmills close or reduce production.

Binley and his management team have responded by buying other pallet companies, embracing new technologies and trying to run their operation as efficiently as possible.

"Pallets Inc. has done an incredible job of going with the flow," said Scholnick, who monitors the industry from the association's base in Alexandria, Va. "It's had to change because the customer has become so much more discriminating. Before, they wanted a pallet. Now, they want a pallet that's designed to accommodate the load they're putting on it."

For Binley and his 35 employees, that means tailoring the pallet to the customer. They make pallets for more than 150 companies, and most want four or five different-sized, custom-made pallets, Binley said.

"One of our strengths is being able to adapt to different customers' demands in the marketplace," he said. "And that spans three generations. It all derives from being willing to take an innovative approach to help customers meet their packaging requirements."

It all began with Binley's grandfather, Arthur S. Binley Jr., who started the business in 1942 to provide pallets for the movement of supplies during World War II. Binley's father, Arthur S. Binley III, took over in the 1970s, and Binley, 40, became president in 2000.

The Binleys rose to national prominence in the industry. Clint Binley, a member of the board and executive committee of the National Wooden Pallet & Container Association, will become chairman of the board next year, a position his father and grandfather also held.

"As far as my memory takes me, they're the only family to have three generations do that," said Ed Brindley, who has followed the industry since 1977 as publisher of a market report and trade magazine.

Because of those leadership roles, Binley said Pallets Inc. was the first company in the world to institute the revolutionary pallet-design system (known simply as PDS) developed in the mid-1980s by the association in conjunction with Virginia Tech. The system uses computers to design pallets and can adjust easily for such variables as heavier loads or different types of lumber.

"That took a lot of guesswork out of pallet design and performance," Binley said. "It saved a lot of time and eliminated a lot of waste."

Through the years, Pallets Inc. has bought better nailing machines, upgraded steel and mechanics for its saws, and added computers to help with pallet assembly. At the same time, it has had to confront a shrinking manufacturing economy and less demand for its product.

"For instance, GE used to be a huge purchaser of wooden pallets," Binley said. "Now they're about a tenth of what they used to be."

In the past five years, Pallets Inc. has purchased four other pallet companies in the Northeast and incorporated those operations into its Fort Edward headquarters and satellite plant in Granville. That allowed the company to add customers and secure new sources of lumber.

As sawmills have succumbed to economic pressures and closed or cut back over the past decade, Pallets Inc. has lost about 75 percent of its suppliers. Also, all its suppliers were within a 50-mile radius 10 years ago. Now it's having to send its trucks 250 miles or more for lumber. As costs have increased, the company has had to raise prices.

Pallets Inc. also has had to buy what's available more soft woods (pine and spruce) and less-dense hardwoods (aspen and basswood) and cut back on the dense hardwoods (ash, beech, birch, maple and oak). That has forced the company to alter designs to ensure that the softer woods can still meet their customers' weight demands.

Pallets Inc. began recycling pallets in the early 1980s and then selling the recycled pallet. That provided another option for customers and saved them the cost of sending used pallets to landfills. Recycled pallets make up about 15 percent of sales, Binley said.

Making pallets is a fairly straightforward process involving lumber, nails and manpower, he said. It boils down to good management and efficient production. Pallets Inc. has worked with the Chief Executive Network for Manufacturing in the Capital Region to obtain grants to train workers at all levels of the company.

"In the end, it requires hands-on management," said Brindley, the publisher of industry reports. "That's what Pallets Inc. does so well. It keeps a real conscious eye on keeping quality up and getting the product out the door."