END-OF-LINE PACKAGE AUTOMATION JUSTIFYING THE COST OF AUTOMATING YOUR END-OF-LINE PACKAGING PROCESS FOR ENHANCED OUTPUT AND INCREASED SAVINGS A WHITE PAPER BY: REBECCA WILLSON, CONTENT SPECIALIST INTRODUCTION Do any of these situations sound familiar? Your packaging line can’t keep up with your production rates. You’re experiencing bottlenecks in your packaging area causing ripple effects up the line. You’re struggling to keep up with customer demand. You’re so dependent on manual labor that one employee missing their shift affects your entire day’s production schedule. Packaging is sloppy and reports of product damage are rising. Packaging quality goes down as shifts progress. Packaging is taking up too much space in your facility. You’ve got workers suffering from repetitive strain injuries. You’re losing both product and profit. With costs increasing daily, how can you stay competitive? You need to increase your throughput while reducing costs. It seems counterintuitive trying to do more with less resources, but that is the direction of American manufacturing. With imports arriving daily produced for much less, American companies are turning to new and innovative ways to make sure that they are competitive in the constantly evolving world economy. TABLE OF CONTENTS WHY PACKAGING IS SO CRITICAL TO YOUR BUSINESS AND YOUR BRAND ................................... 3 EVERYTHING YOU ORIGINALLY THOUGHT ABOUT BOX PACKAGING IS WRONG ........................ 4 IT ALL STARTS WITH A CORRECTLY ASSEMBLED BOX ........................................................................ 5 REMEMBER THESE 2 CRITICAL THINGS ABOUT SQUARE CASES ................................................ 5 MAKE SURE YOUR CASES ARE PROPERLY SEALED ............................................................................... 6 THE 8 MAIN REASONS TO INSTALL A CASE SEALER IN YOUR FACILITY .................................. 7 WHAT’S INSIDE CAN ENSURE PROTECTION EVEN IF THE BOX FAILS ............................................... 7 FOAM-IN-PLACE OFFERS A UNIQUE VOID FILL OPTION .................................................................... 8 WHERE FOAM-IN-PLACE MAKES THE MOST SENSE ........................................................................ 9 ALTERNATIVE PACKAGING OPTIONS ........................................................................................................ 9 WHEN BAGGING IS BETTER THAN BOXING FOR YOUR PACKAGING NEEDS ............................... 9 TOP 10 WAYS AUTOMATIC BAGGERS PROVIDE INCREASED EFFICIENCY.............................. 10 TO SHRINK WRAP OR SHRINK BUNDLE? .............................................................................................. 10 WHY USE SHRINK WRAP? ..................................................................................................................... 11 SO, WHEN EXACTLY SHOULD YOU CONSIDER SHRINK BUNDLING? ....................................... 12 HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT SHRINK MACHINE............................................................................... 13 SHIPPING LARGE PALLETIZED UNITS REQUIRES ITS OWN PACKAGING ........................................ 13 7 KEY THINGS TO REMEMBER WHEN PICKING A STRETCH WRAPPER .................................... 14 WHEN YOU MIGHT CHOOSE STRAPPING FOR YOUR PALLETIZATION ........................................ 15 6 QUESTIONS TO DETERMINE THE RIGHT KIND OF STRAPPING ................................................ 15 CHOOSING THE RIGHT MACHINE FOR YOUR STRAPPING NEEDS ............................................. 16 AUTOMATION SAVES MONEY: THE MAIN WAYS TO JUSTIFY THE COST ....................................... 17 SAVINGS THROUGH DAMAGE REDUCTIONS .................................................................................. 17 IMPROVED PROCESSES MEAN INCREASED OUTPUT .................................................................... 18 REDUCTIONS IN LABOR COSTS SAVES THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS EACH YEAR ................... 19 SAVINGS THROUGH DECREASES IN MATERIAL USAGE ON THE LINE ..................................... 20 IMPROVING WORKER ERGONOMICS AND SAFETY CAN ALSO SAVE YOU MONEY .............. 21 CHOOSING THE RIGHT SUPPLIER MAKES ALL THE DIFFERENCE ..................................................... 22 EXPERIENCE ............................................................................................................................................ 22 CUSTOMIZED AND PERSONAL SERVICE .......................................................................................... 22 HOW MUCH OF A ROLE DOES PACKAGE ENGINEERING PLAY? ................................................. 23 CHOOSE A COMPANY WITH NUMEROUS OFFERINGS UNDER ONE ROOF ............................... 23 FIND A COMPANY THAT UNDERSTANDS SCALABILITY .............................................................. 23 2 | P a g e IPS Packaging | 10 Jack Casey Court, Fountain Inn, SC 29644 | www.ipack.com | 1.800.277.7007 WHY PACKAGING IS SO CRITICAL TO YOUR BUSINESS AND YOUR BRAND When it comes to purchasing, customer satisfaction is relative to the size and price of the products that they are having shipped. The more money they spend, the more likely they are to be concerned about the potential for damage. And knowing that they can return a product will do nothing to alleviate the anxiety and negativity they will feel should they need to exercise that capability. To be honest, anyone of us would be more likely to understand damage to a paperback book we ordered off of Amazon over the newest iPhone we ordered from our cellular provider. It no longer makes sense for retailers to simply increase the size of the package in order to improve protection; in shipping dimensional weights matter more than actual weights, so retailers must take into account their customer’s needs and interests as they consider their packaging. Consumers have reasonable shipping expectations: Deliver ordered items in a high-impact and long-lasting comfort cushion Wraps the product without hiding it in annoying loose fill Secure the item with less product and something that is a sustainable solution Protect fragile, odd-sized, and odd-shaped products Reduce the worry about product performance and the need to return Lower or maintain current customer share of shipping cost Consider this: a 2014 study showed that only 5% of consumers feel their customer experience exceeded their expectations and approximately 30% say that companies miss the mark. Regardless of the retailer, customers expect products to be damage free. And their expectations seem to have risen alongside the rise and availability of online sources to voice their satisfaction or, more importantly, their dissatisfaction: 95% of customers will report their poor experiences to others some of the time 60% of consumers will report their poor experiences to others all of the time To be honest, the general public has little understanding of the critical importance that packaging plays. It’s not just about the box looking nice on the shelf and catching our attention; it’s about On average, consumers will only tell 8 safely getting those boxes to customers. With damage rates during people about their good experiences, but shipping hovering around the 10% mark and customers being will likely tell more than TWICE that connected around the globe, it’s time to reconsider the best way to many about their bad experiences. package products to protect them. The best way to start is to remember what your package will face in transit and then find ways to avoid that potential for damage. While no protection is guarantee-able, especially once the package leaves your facility, if you’ve prepared your package for the worst, hopefully, you’ll see better results. End-of-line package automation is the new packaging buzzword because it saves time and money while decreasing product damages sustained in transit. When using automation, you’re using less materials, you’re ensuring a cleaner application, and, at the same time, you’re removing some of labor intensive aspect of packaging. It’s easy to write about why packaging automation is the right decision for every facility, but it’s harder to prove. And it’s safe to bet that machines are pretty low on the list of priorities, especially, if your management team is looking for ways to cut costs. 3 | P a g e IPS Packaging | 10 Jack Casey Court, Fountain Inn, SC 29644 | www.ipack.com | 1.800.277.7007 However, you can’t look at it as a simple way to reduce damage or save money through simple reductions in labor or material usage; think of it as a way to scale production. Increased production and decreased expense: two of the best reasons to automate in today’s business environment of doing more with less. Many companies are now considering additional costs savings, such as the overall costs of lost opportunity (due to employee “Automating [aspects of the] manufacturing absenteeism), safety and ergonomics related costs, reductions in process [such as packaging] not only drives waste, reductions in their carbon footprint, and the savings in both administrative time and expense of employing and costs down, it improves quality, reduces waste managing fewer people. All these factors can lead to an accurate and optimizes energy use. […The] application ROI calculation. of automation is an essential ingredient in the sustainability of manufacturing businesses; Everything you’ve read and all the research you’ve found says automation will consequently increase a automating end-of-line packaging