Crating and export crates in Dallas-Fort Worth

An inland metro with airport and rail

Dallas-Fort Worth is a crossroads of freight. Interstates 35E, 35W, 20, 30 and 45 meet around it, and the metro is a major Union Pacific and BNSF location. Dallas Fort Worth International Airport is the main cargo airport, with Dallas Love Field and Alliance Airport north of Fort Worth also in the picture. There is no deepwater port, so ocean cargo goes south by truck or rail to Houston.

That shapes how we think about the crate. A load from a Fort Worth plant may spend two days on a trailer before it meets a vessel, and the crate has to survive that and the terminal handling after it.

What the metro builds

DFW's manufacturing is mixed. Aerospace and defense work around Fort Worth, avionics and electronic assemblies, telecom and semiconductor-related equipment in the northern suburbs, and industrial machinery and fabricated metal across the metro. Texas leads all states in goods exports, and machinery manufacturing is among its top nonenergy export industries (BLS), so a good share of what is crated here is headed abroad.

A typical order list reads like this: a rack of electronics boxed for a customer site, a machined housing in a returnable crate, a test fixture that goes back and forth between plants. Each wants a different crate.

• Avionics and instruments: sheathed crates with foam or blocking, shock indicators
• Machined aerospace parts: VCI wrap, small cleated crates, repeat orders
• Industrial machinery: skid-base crates, lag-bolted
• Electronics racks: strongback frames, tip indicators

Crates for aerospace and electronics

Aerospace work is exacting about documentation and about contact. Wood in contact with machined surfaces is separated by film or foam, loose fasteners are bagged and labelled, and the crate is marked so the receiver knows which side opens. We write the crate spec down and keep it on file, so the 40th shipment of a given housing leaves in the same crate as the first.

For electronics, vibration and static matter more than weight. Sheathed panels keep out dust, a barrier bag keeps out moisture, and blocking at the base keeps a rack from walking inside the crate. Where a rack must stay upright, we add a tip indicator and a centre-of-gravity mark so the forklift driver sees where to lift.

Getting freight to Houston and the airport

Truck lanes from DFW to Houston run down I-45, and many shippers book through a forwarder. The crate should be stamped and ready ahead of that forwarder's cut-off at the port. Tell us the cut-off when you request the quote and we schedule backward from it.

For air, DFW Airport is the usual departure. Air cargo is priced by dimensional weight, so we build the crate to the load, no taller than it needs to be, with panels light enough to keep the tare down. Carriers and forwarders also have their own acceptance rules on size, which we build to when you pass them to us.

Delivery to Dallas-Fort Worth docks

Crates are built to order and delivered to the shipper's dock in the metro, whether that is a plant in Arlington, a distribution dock in Irving or a fabricator in Fort Worth. We do not keep a yard or facility in the metro. For tall or irregular loads, a knockdown kit with numbered panels lets your crew close the crate at the load and not move the load to the crate.

Repeat buyers can have us hold the spec and rebuild it on each order, which suits a plant with a fixed set of parts going out every month.

Border lanes from the metro

North Texas shippers also send machinery and parts to Mexico by truck down I-35 toward Laredo. Those crates ride on flatbeds and meet forklifts at a transfer yard on both sides of the border, so the skid is reinforced and the roof is sheathed. Ask your broker what the receiver's dock accepts, and tell us in the quote.

Wood going to Mexico may fall under the destination country's wood packaging rules; check APHIS and the Mexican plant-protection authority before you assume anything.

Quote notes for North Texas loads

Tell us which of three paths the crate will take: a truck to Houston and a vessel, a truck to the airport and a flight, or a trailer straight to the receiver. Each has a different failure mode, and we draw the crate for the one it will meet. A long trailer haul rewards a deeper skid; a flight rewards a lighter lid.

Add the receiving dock's limits if you know them: door height, whether a forklift or a crane unloads the crate, and whether the crate is opened on the dock or carried to a bay. A crate that cannot be opened where it lands is a crate that gets damaged being opened.