From Drawing to Shop Floor: The Pallet Bill of Materials and Cut List
How to turn a pallet design into a production cut list and a lumber order — total board counts, cross-section summaries and cubic-metre estimates for any run size.
A pallet drawing tells you what one pallet looks like. To actually build a run of 300 or 3000, the shop floor needs something else: a bill of materials and a cut list that says exactly how many pieces of each board to cut, and how much lumber to order. Here is how that document is built.
Per-pallet, then per-run
Start from the parts of a single pallet — each with a cross-section (thickness × width) and a length. Multiply each part's per-pallet quantity by the number of pallets in the run to get the total piece count. Add a waste allowance (commonly 3–5%) to cover defects, trim loss and mistakes.
Grouping by cross-section
Sawmills sell lumber by cross-section, not by finished part. So the most useful summary groups every piece by its cross-section and sums the total length. For example, all 22×120 mm parts across the whole run might add up to a few thousand metres — that is what you actually order.
- Total pieces per cross-section — for the cutting station.
- Total length in metres — for the lumber order.
- Total volume in cubic metres — for pricing and delivery planning.
Why the cut list saves money
Ordering by finished part almost always over- or under-buys. Ordering by cross-section and total length lets the sawmill supply standard lengths you cut down efficiently, minimizing offcuts. A good cut list also exposes where a small design change — a slightly narrower board, one fewer deck board — cuts cost across the whole run.
Generate it automatically
In PalletDrawing, open the Production list, enter your run quantity and waste allowance, and the tool produces a per-pallet and total cut list, a cross-section lumber summary, and total piece / nail / weight / cubic-metre figures — then exports a branded PDF you can hand straight to the shop floor or the sawmill.