How palletdesign.ai designs and checks a pallet

The short version

You describe the job: the load, how it's handled, where it ships. The AI designer reads that and proposes a design as a list of edits to a pallet specification, such as "set the footprint to 48 × 48", "four stringers", "heat treated". The engine then rebuilds the pallet from the specification, checks it, and redraws the sheet. If a check fails, the design can't be exported until the issue is fixed.

That split matters. Language models are good at understanding "four drums, pallet jack, going to Mexico" and bad at arithmetic. The engine is plain, tested code, so the same spec always produces the same drawing, the same parts list and the same numbers.

The pallet specification

Every design is one structured record, the spec. It holds:

• Footprint: length and width in actual inches (millimetres are a display option). Length is the stringer or stringerboard direction and is stated first, so a 48 × 40 has 48 in stringers. See pallet dimensions explained.
• Construction: stringer or block. For stringer pallets: top and bottom deckboard counts, thicknesses and widths, stringer count and section, notches, wing style, bottom-board layout and chamfers. For block pallets: deck direction, stringerboards, block sizes and base style.
• Lumber: species, moisture (green or kiln dried to 19%), grade, and whether it's heat treated to ISPM-15.
• Fasteners: type, length, and nails per joint (automatic by board width, or set by hand).
• Requirements: load, load type, racking, stacking, entry, pallet jack, export, one-way or reusable, and budget.

What the engine computes

From the spec, the engine resolves every part into a position and a size, then derives the rest.

The GMA-style 48 × 40 is the reference case the engine is tested against: 7 top and 5 bottom boards on 3 notched stringers gives 4-3/4 in overall height, 3-1/4 in top gaps, 84 nails (48 top, 36 bottom), 13.49 board feet and about 59 lb in green mixed hardwood. Those match published spec sheets for the same design. The 48 × 40 stringer pallet page shows the full output.

The checks

Each check has a severity. Blocking issues mean the design is wrong or can't be built as specified, and the drawing can't be exported until they're fixed. Warnings mean it works but a reviewer would question it. Info notes give context.

• Geometry: boards that overlap, stringers that don't fit across the width, notches that run into each other, fork openings between blocks under 6 in.
• Uniform Standard and practice: less than 2 in of stringer left above a notch, notches too short for standard tines, top-deck gaps over 5 in, top boards under 1/2 in thick.
• Requirements fit: 4-way entry asked for without notches, export without ISPM-15 heat treatment, pallet jacks with no chamfer or a perimeter base, skids that will be stacked, drum loads over wide gaps, heavy loads on thin top boards, budget overruns.
• Indicative capacity: a simple beam check on the stringers or deck for the racking condition you state.

What it doesn't claim

Capacity figures are indicative. They come from a simple bending check (uniform load, conservative allowable stress for pallet-grade lumber, 2 in of bearing on each rack beam), not from the reliability-calibrated analysis in the Pallet Design System or from a physical test. They're useful for catching a design that is clearly too weak. They are not a safe working load rating. When a buyer needs a rated pallet, the manufacturer runs a PDS analysis or tests to ASTM D1185 or ISO 8611. See pallet load capacity.

Weight and cost are estimates from default factors. Your mill's lumber, moisture and prices will move them, and Enterprise accounts can set their own lumber prices.

Where the AI fits

The AI designer only emits edits to the spec, in the same format a person uses in the CAD workspace. Every edit is validated before it's applied, and each one shows as a change on the drawing so you can review it. When no AI is available, a rules-based designer handles common requests (size, load, drums, pallet jack, export, racking, stacking) by the same route. Design variants (an economy build, a heavier build, an alternate construction) are built by the engine itself, checked like any other design, and dropped if they have blocking issues.

Standards the engine uses

• Uniform Standard for Wood Pallets: terminology, nail minimums, notch guidance.
• ISPM-15: heat treatment for export.
• ISO 6780 and ANSI MH1: the common footprints in the size catalog.
• EPAL: the EUR 1 template, 1200 × 800 mm.