Like materials handling, commercial packaging adds cost not value to the products being produced but such can be the boons of properly-considered packaging that not only are the packaging’s costs and disposal cut but so, too, are materials handling and transport costs, and green credentials enhanced. The biggest dividends from thoughtful packaging techniques will derive from a holistic approach in which cross border parties in the supply chain collaborate – what Corsten Diekman, MD of George Utz UK, calls ‘federalisation’, particularly in relation to the automotive supply chain. This coming together of commercial supply chain standards -a one size fits all approach – optimises their global effectiveness.
‘Federalisation’ packaging, however, may be a far horizon but if companies want to pay more than lip service to sustainability by reducing their carbon footprint they must act earnestly now. The European Commission, for example, recently revised upwards its ‘Circular Economy Package’ recycling targets, with the adoption of a common, EUwide goal of 75% packaging waste to be recycled. In the light of this, large users and disposers of cardboard and polyethylene stretchwrap packaging would do well to use their own onsite compactors and balers which would not only avoid collection costs but earn a tidy sum from clean, baled stretchwrap which in good times could earn £250 a ton.
Size matters, they say, but in packaging it is a case of the smaller the better, a philosophy Sealed Air dubs as ‘precycling’, whereby less packaging is used from the start. This is given added urgency by the meteoric rise of online shopping, because e-tailing means more packaging and more waste.
Best known for its bubble wrap, Sealed Air has innovated much since launching that product. They have developed automated solutions that reduce empty space in a box to cut the need for filler materials, and others that read the barcode of each order and dispense only the amount of packaging material needed. The latter reduces the overall size of the package and therefore the amount of freight energy needed to deliver each order. Even its shrinkwrap film uses a proprietary, micro-layered technology that uses much less plastic.
Packsize, a global leader in ‘On demand packaging’, claims that on average products sold on the Internet are shipped in boxes that are 35% too large. Not only does that waste corrugated cardboard and raises freight volume it also often means that petroleum-based fillers are used to fill the box voids.
Packsize’s high speed corrugated converting machines give workers instant ability to create a box that matches the product to be packaged and shipped. These machines can reduce the need to store many different box sizes and seriously cut product damage losses arising from shipping in boxes that are too large. Depending on the nature of goods being produced, like JIT-run car makers, sometimes it makes sense to create special, ship-to-line, one-touch re-usable packaging but one should also consider information flows especially in JIT scenarios. Changes in ship-to-line deliveries can also affect and improve vehicle discharge methods or mean a reversal to simpler means of shop floor deliveries like smaller containers wheeled around on hand trolleys.
In automated warehouses packaging and pallets require more attention because it heavily influences the design process for warehouse automation. If arriving materials vary widely in size, weight and method of load restraint on equally diverse pallets then such data is fundamental to the design process, and requires detailed investigation.
Compared with manual handling, warehouse automation requires better quality packaging and pallets, more consistency and care over packaging and labelling. Special care may be needed over the choice of conveyors. More automated warehouse operators are switching to belt conveyors from the roller type because the latter are more prone to snagging with loose stretchwrap or banding.
It is obvious that packaging is more complex than first meets the eye. Companies looking to improve their packaging ‘green’ credentials, therefore, may wish to take the consultative approach with packaging specialists who can design out materials and handling.
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