Nestable and Stackable Pallets: Maryland

Maryland, by road

Start with the map. The Port of Baltimore anchors the east, and I-70 and I-81 meet at Hagerstown in the west. The Interstates I-95, I-70, I-81 and I-68 set the haul lengths, and the longer the haul, the more an empty stack's height matters.

The counties with the most warehousing jobs are Harford (3,435), Prince George's (2,664) and Washington (1,842), which is 26.5 percent of the state's 29,966. It shares a land border with Delaware, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia.

Warehousing in numbers

Maryland reports no refrigerated warehouse capacity separately in the USDA table we used, so the cold question depends on the individual customer.

Reading the numbers

• Harford County has 3,435 warehousing jobs, 11.5 percent of Maryland's 29,966, the most in the state.
• Prince George's County has 2,664 warehousing jobs, 8.9 percent of Maryland's 29,966, 771 fewer than Harford County.
• Washington County has 1,842 warehousing jobs, 6.1 percent of Maryland's 29,966, 1,593 fewer than Harford County.
• Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing employs 9,019 people in Maryland, 0.30 for every warehousing job.
• Warehousing and storage employs 29,966 people in Maryland, 1.00 for every warehousing job.
• Maryland holds 1.58 percent of US warehousing jobs, about one in every 63, spread over 245 establishments averaging 122 jobs each.
• Baltimore accounts for 6,377 warehousing jobs, 21.3 percent of Maryland's.
• Hagerstown accounts for 1,842 warehousing jobs, 6.1 percent of Maryland's.
• Delaware has 12,495 warehousing jobs, 0.42 times the 29,966 in Maryland.
• Pennsylvania has 123,481 warehousing jobs, 4.12 times the 29,966 in Maryland.
• West Virginia has 3,631 warehousing jobs, 0.12 times the 29,966 in Maryland.
• Virginia has 51,123 warehousing jobs, 1.71 times the 29,966 in Maryland.

Who ships pallets here

In Maryland, pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing employs 9,019. The questions are what the pallet is made of, how it is cleaned, and what documents travel with it. It tends to lean on clean, washable stackable or nestable with a paperwork trail, usually in 48 x 40 in, and to ask about resin and colourant documents and the maker's cleaning guidance.

Pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing is the trade where Maryland is most concentrated, at 1.5 times the national share of employment. A buyer in that trade will tend to ask the questions in the last column first.

The empty return

An illustration, not a forecast: if each of 245 warehouse establishments in Maryland sent back 1,200 empty pallets in a week, that would be 294,000 pallets. The table counts the 53 ft trailers that takes at three makers' published nestable figures, beside the 540 per trailer of a rackable.

Next door

Metros in Maryland with their own page: Baltimore and Hagerstown.

Words on this page

Commodity class

A fire-protection category for stored goods and their pallets, used to design sprinkler systems.

ZIP Code Business Patterns

A Census Bureau series that counts establishments by ZIP code and industry.

QCEW

The Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, a Bureau of Labor Statistics count of jobs and establishments taken from unemployment insurance records.

Drayage

The short haul of a container between a port or rail ramp and a warehouse.

Reefer

A refrigerated trailer or container.

Dock door

The opening where a trailer backs to a building so pallets can be loaded and unloaded.

Pallet jack

A hand or powered truck with two forks, used to move a pallet short distances.

Cruciform base

A base shaped like a plus sign under the pallet, which gives a stable footprint and slides well on conveyors.

Open deck

A deck with slots or a grid, which drains water, sheds dust and weighs less than a solid one.