Stretch Film: Hand Wrapping vs. Machine Wrapping

27 May.,2024

 

Stretch Film: Hand Wrapping vs. Machine Wrapping

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. 

If you are looking for more details, kindly visit stretch film packaging machine.

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. 

Are you interested in learning more about Automatic Flow Wrapping Machine? Contact us today to secure an expert consultation!

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.

Orbital stretch wrappers: 5 reasons to change your process

Benefits of Orbital Stretch Wrappers

Still using manual stretch wrap methods? That's alright for low volume applications where packaging equipment isn't needed. If you're looking for a better process for high volume applications, orbital stretch wrappers can help. These machines are ideal for securing over-sized, oddly shaped, and palletized loads. Orbital machines wrap the film all the way around the pallet by rotating the film. Compared to other stretch wrappers, orbital wrappers tend to get higher throughput speeds. This is because the palletized loads don't need to be rotated at high speeds, instead the machine wraps around the pallet.

5 reasons to change your stretch wrapping process

  1. Productivity
  2. Cost savings
  3. Safety
  4. Consistent application
  5. Load integrity

Productivity

Orbital stretch wrappers can work long hours, while maintaining a consistently high quality. Using these machines boosts your pack to ship performance while minimizing labor costs. Most loads are wrapped in under 3 minutes, think you can beat that time by manually wrapping the pallet? Stretch wrapping systems are one of the fastest ways to boost your end-of-line packaging efficiency. These machines eliminate the need for operators to manually attach the film tail to the load, then cut and secure the film tail at the end of the cycle.

Cost savings

If you're hand wrapping 20 or more loads per day, it's more cost-effective to use an orbital stretch wrapper than to apply stretch wrap by hand. You could see an ROI in as little as 6 months when investing in stretch wrap equipment. Material savings are huge with orbital stretch wrappers. They can reduce the cost of stretch film by up to 75% compared to the manual wrapping process. Also, by stabilizing the load and wrapping properly, you can recover nearly 50% of your potentially damaged products.

Safety

An orbital stretch wrapping machine eliminates side to side movements of hand wrapping that commonly lead to back injuries. Packaging equipment like stretch wrappers also eliminate injuries associated with metal banding strapping. The constant bending and twisting and lifting required to wrap a pallet is taken out of the equation, instead, just press a button and let the machine do the work for you.

Consistent application

Most machine applied stretch wrap is pre-stretched at least 200%. This results in a tighter load while using less product. Also, you know you're getting the same wrap each and every time. Compare that to an operator wrapping a pallet on a certain day, and a different operator wrapping on another day. They're not going to be the same and that leads to more damaged product and inconsistency in your packaging process.

Load integrity

The top, middle, and bottom layers of your load need to all have the correct amount of containment force. (The wrap force multiplied by the number of film layers) The right amount of containment force depends on the type of load you&#;re wrapping. Heavy loads may require more containment force and lighter loads may require less. With an orbital stretch wrapper, you'll get the correct about of containment force every single time you use the machine. The load integrity will stay the same from the 1st pallet wrap of the day, to the last.

Orbital stretch wrappers: Case studies

When it comes to packaging equipment like orbital stretch wrappers, you want to hear about actual results. How have these machines impacted other companies' operations? Here's some real facts.

Metal fabricator gets proven ROI

Their shipping challenges included:

  • Reducing ergonomic related worker injuries
  • Decreasing excessive labor costs
  • Lowering shipping time and bottlenecks

Orbital stretch wrapper solution:

Installing a stretch wrapping machine triplex their shipping capacity and helped eliminate downtime. The metal fabricator went from wrapping 30 pallets a day to 90 pallets a day. Their proven ROI was delivered in just 6 months.

Appliance manufacturer triples their productivity

Their shipping challenges included:

  • Damage free shipments of slippery, odd-shaped loads
  • Reducing excessive labor costs and shipping time
  • Elminating banding related worker injuries

Orbital stretch wrapper solution:

It used to take two workers to wrap a pallet in 15 minutes, now one operator can effectively wrap a pallet it under 5 minutes. The company tripled their pack to ship productivity with proven ROI of $ in savings each week. Installing the orbital machine successfully eliminated product damage during shipping and those banding related worker injuries.

Machine tool builder streamlines shipping operation

Their shipping challenges included:

  • Streamlining internal packaging and shipping operations
  • Minimizing labor requirements and costs
  • Eliminating damages to parts

Orbital stretch wrapper solution:

IPS Packaging's installation of the ITW Muller Yellow Jacket led to nearly $20,000 in yearly savings. They improved their damage rates, and streamlined their internal packaging process. Their work was cut in half by using the machine, using a more efficient stretch wrapping process.

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