When you are in the business of manufacturing and pallet wrapping your products, it is good practice to review your procedures and methods regularly to ensure that your operation is as efficient as possible. If your warehouse and shipping facilities aren’t as efficient as they should be you there is a potential that your production line can suffer from higher waste levels, lower productivity and unnecessary processes that impede the safe and efficient packing and wrapping of pallets ready for freighting.
If you are looking to save time money and improve your processes here are some key focus points to consider before purchasing a pallet stretch wrapping machine and packaging methods.
Ensure Consistent Wrapping Procedures
Proper pallet wrapping techniques and consistency goes a long way in preventing costly in-transit damage. Setting out the wrapping process in detail and functional repartition reduces the risk of work-related injuries. Staff competence training is a vital component of elevating packaging standards in the production line.
Functional Floor Design
The importance of a clean, efficient and well layout warehouse is vital. It doesn’t matter how fast your wrappers are if they spend more time looking for items, or space prohibits free movement in the wrapping bays this will only result in inefficient time management and increase the likelihood of accidents from occurring.
Having an efficient warehouse plan and properly trained staff is every bit important as the actual product you are packaging. Think carefully about the ergonomics and functional layout to maximise the time it takes to wrap your pallets. Attention to operational efficiency should be high on your audit list in order to maintain practical time-saving processes.
Make Sure You Have the Right Tools
If you intend to maximise the efficiency of your pallet packaging operations, then you need the right tools to make it happen. If you are hand wrapping, access to high-quality packaging materials and accessories like sturdy pallets, good quality plastic wrap and dispensers help to produce a well-packaged product.
Remember one of the primary functions of shrink wrap is to contain stacked boxes so they behave as one unit, so don’t be inclined to assume the cheaper film is more economical. Short term savings in materials simply don’t justify the expenses incurred when goods are damaged due to ineffective packaging materials.
If you typically wrap more than a dozen pallets per day and looking to increase productivity because you are seeing an increase in the volumes of pallets, then a semi-automatic or fully automatic stretch wrapping machine can help boost productivity and efficiency levels. It may make sense to invest in a pallet wrapper that is capable of wrapping a pallet in far less time and with greater consistency than a hand palletising system.
Consider How You Are Stacking
The most important thing you can do to improve the way you pack pallets is to consider all your stacking options. Before packing your next pallet, consider the different stacking design combinations consider the way you package and stack boxes. If you can ultimately reduce the number of packing materials being used and standardize sizes it is possible to gain greater strength, stability on your pallet.
A significant amount of effort, logistics and manhandling goes into packaging and palletising a product to ensure they reach their destination in good condition. While we hope freighting is a profitable transaction there are times your products may arrive in less-than-perfect condition and damages sustained during shipment could have easily been avoided by simply improving basic packaging techniques.
For more information, contact Melbourne Packaging Supplies who stock some of the leading brands for pallet wrapping machines.