Introducing Paper Pallets to the IKEA Food Supply Chain - What is the Potential and Will the Temperature be Retained during Transportation?

Abstract: Title: Introducing Paper Pallets to the IKEA Food Supply Chain - What are the Potentials and Will the Temperature be Retained during Transport? Contribution: This thesis is produced with equal efforts from both authors, where each author has been involved in each and every step of the process. Problem description: Paper pallets with 50 mm feet have been used in IKEA Furniture for several years with both positive financial and environmental benefits. However, IKEA Food has up until today not implemented paper pallets. They are now eager to align with the rest of IKEA in this area. The main difference between IKEA Furniture and IKEA Food is however that the products in Food require a temperature-controlled environment. What remains to be investigated for IKEA is if this temperature- controlled environment can be retained during transportation with a full truckload of paper pallets or if the height of the pallets is too low to permit a sufficient airflow in a truck. Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to examine the potential of the paper pallet and investigate if the air circulation is good enough to uphold the right temperature during transportation when loading a full load of paper pallets in a temperature-controlled truck, as well as to propose a recommendation of whether paper pallets in current dimensions can be used in the IKEA Food supply chain. Research questions: RQ1: How will the usage of paper pallets, instead of wooden EUR-pallets, impact the temperature during truck transportations with chilled and frozen goods? SQ1: How well will the temperature be kept within the products' optimal temperature interval during transportation with paper pallets and wooden EUR-pallets? SQ2: What conditions affect the temperature during transport? SQ3: How is the temperature maintenance connected to the cooling unit and its airflow patterns? RQ2: What are the advantages and challenges with paper pallets in the IKEA Food supply chain? Methodology: The chosen methodology was a combination of explanatory and exploratory since the aim was to both explore new ground and to create awareness and gain knowledge about an occurrence. An abductive approach was applied and the chosen research strategy was a combination of a holistic single-case study and an experiment. A literature review, interviews, archival data, observations, and an experiment are the five sources of data that have been used and the quality of research was assessed through the perspective of validity, reliability, and objectivity. Conclusion: Based on the temperature measurements in the experiment, no significant difference in temperature measurements can be found between trucks loaded with paper pallets and reference trucks loaded with wooden EUR-pallets. This indicates that from the perspective of temperature maintenance during transport, paper pallets are equal to the traditional wooden EUR-pallets. The result however indicates that there is a general problem with maintaining the correct temperature since no truck, including the reference trucks, maintained the desired temperature for the majority of the time. Part of the issue seems to be connected to deficiencies in the handling of goods and measures should thus be taken to improve this. However, the potential of introducing paper pallets into the supply chain of IKEA Food is assessed as very positive and widespread among the different supply chain actors. Still, the implementation implies challenges in the high-complexity context of the IKEA Food supply chain. Due to the limited comprehensiveness of the experiment, it is critical to repeat the tests, preferably on a bigger scale, in order to increase the validity of the results. A further challenge is the required adaptations of handling equipment and method as well as defying skepticism and creating a unified belief throughout the supply chain. Keywords: paper pallets, temperature-controlled transport, food supply chain