In modern business, efficiency is one of the most important metrics to use in judging how successful you are. When greater efficiency can be achieved, it’s worthwhile to invest in solutions that can deliver it for you and give your business the competitive edge.
It makes sense that moving away from the old ways — which typically include a lot of hand labor performed by your workforce — could deliver these valuable efficiencies for you. You stand to grow margins, lower your risks, and improve the customer experience by machine-wrapping your deliverables.
An automatic stretch wrap machine may be just what your organization needs to be able to compete at the next level.
- Eliminate inconsistency and stabilize shipments
- Reduce returns and damages
- Use less film and lower costs
- Minimize employee exposure to potential injury
- Embrace the efficiency boost of automation
The use of a pallet stretch wrap machine is a proven method of increasing profitability by driving better efficiency across packaging processes.
Eliminate Inconsistency
Any shrink wrap on your palletized goods is one component of a precisely engineered solution system. Deploying it incorrectly or with inconsistencies is a sure way to incur losses, and the worst part of that scenario is that those losses are preventable through automation.
Should you have to train your people how to shrink-wrap a pallet? It seems simple enough, doesn’t it? In truth, there’s a lot that goes into shrink-wrapping a pallet of goods to be totally secure in shipment.
No matter how good your resident pallet wrapping expert is, they will, at best, be inconsistent and inadequate to the task. The worst-case scenario is that one of your people wraps a pallet in such a way that it falls to pieces in shipment, and your goods get damaged, or someone gets hurt by a shifting load.
The best case scenario is that you use way too much film, thereby reducing your margins significantly, especially when viewed from the quarterly or annual perspective.
Inconsistencies that manifest in the process of hand-laid stretch film also hit your bottom line in terms of how much film you’re using. Most of the time, hand-applied wrap is overused because humans can’t properly stretch the film to enable its maximum effectiveness and efficiency.
Use Less Film
When compared with a Robopac stretch wrap machine from Korpack, humans can’t begin to get the same mileage out of a roll of stretch wrap:
- Human maximum limit: 10% to 40%
- Machine maximum limit: 200% to 400%
If you’re still wrapping the hard way, it’s a short-term gain but a long-term loss. Switching to stretch wrap equipment sooner than later will make a huge positive impact on your long-term profitability.
Reduce Exposure to Employee Injury
When you look closely at the way most shops wrap palletized goods, it takes about ten seconds to see the risk — at least if you’re looking at the process with a keen and critical eye.
Most of the time, employees’ body positions invite physical injury or even danger.
Starting at the bottom of the load, where they wedge the leading end of the film between the product and the pallet, they work their way around and around, moving backward, bent over awkwardly, with both hands on the roll of shrink wrap.
They transit the perimeter of the pallet, working their way up, trying their best to stretch the film, and when they’re done, they’re dizzy.
There is a better way — deploying stretch wrap packaging equipment in your warehouse and production facilities.
You can reduce your exposure to employee injury and the potential workers’ comp claims that come with such exposure by simply using a machine to wrap your pallets. Let your dedicated and experienced workforce focus on the essential, skilled aspects of your logistics concerns instead of on wrapping pallets by hand.
Make the Switch to an Automatic Stretch Wrap Machine
It’s simple to eliminate all those exposures to inefficiency by eliminating the need for hand wrapping altogether using a pallet stretch wrapper. Automatic stretch wrap machines simplify the shipping process.
- Gain consistency and shipment stability
- Use much less film and improve margins
- Eliminate employee exposure to injury from repetitive, awkward motions
Using a machine instead of a person will allow you to see significant increases in the speed with which you’ll be able to complete shipments to your customers. Whether you choose the Genesis Thunder automatic wrapping machine or the Helix Max, which allows for rolls of stretch wrap up to 38.5” (nearly a full meter), you’ll be able to significantly upscale your shipping operations.
What About the Cost?
The upfront costs of an automatic wrapping machine are significant but consider the long-term gains. You’ll be investing in employee morale, and your shipments will certainly look smarter. Additionally, losses from damaged mispackaged freight will vanish.
And if you’re concerned about stretch wrapper maintenance, don’t be. Maintenance costs — for either stretch wrapper service or stretch wrapper repair — are a lot lower than the cost of exposing your operation to the dangers of employee injury and other healthcare concerns.
In fact, if you’re thinking into the future when it comes to the cost of automatic wrapping machines, it could be more costly not to invest. Given how technology has impacted the way the world does business today, you can bet that if you don’t make the investment, your competitors will.
Automatic Pallet Wrapping: The Way Forward
You can keep productivity high with efficiencies gained through automation. Efficiency saves you money by moving your product through processing faster, getting it into your customers’ supply chains when needed, and lowering your cost for materials.
The cost to automate may seem daunting upfront, but it saves you:
- Time
- Money
- Materials
Lowering your cost of doing business over time is a major advantage when it comes to getting an edge on your competition. Making your business more efficient through cost savings will stoke the fires of growth, improve employee morale, and add stability for years to come.
Reach out to Korpack to get more information about stretch film and pallet wrapping today.
