The Benefits Of Automating Your Pallet Wrapping Process

The Benefits Of Automating Your Pallet Wrapping Process

Automating pallet wrapping offers numerous advantages that enhance efficiency, reduce costs, and improve safety. According to a report on automated packaging solutions, "Automation ensures load stability, reduces film usage, and enhances operator safety, making it an indispensable part of modern logistics."

Stretch wrapping machines are an easy, fast, convenient, and efficient way to wrap your pallets ready for the carrier network. Offering a securely bound load beneath a watertight layer of film, pallet wrapping prevents movement of your goods during transportation which can cause damage to your products. Although some low-volume operations wrap their pallets manually, there are many advantages to automating the process, as outlined below.

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Compliance and Consistency

Ensuring Complete Load Stability

Complete load stability is important in light of the EU Directive 2014/47, which governs the securing of cargo with stretch film for the transportation of pallets. The legislation dictates that all pallets transported within the EU must conform to stringent tolerance limits in response to movements of the vehicle.

Cargo securing shall withstand the following forces resulting from accelerations/decelerations of the vehicle:

• in driving direction: 0,8 times the weight of the cargo and
• in lateral direction: 0,5 times the weight of the cargo and
• against driving direction: 0,5 times the weight of the cargo,
• and in general must prevent tilting or tipping of cargo.

All pallets must maintain stiffness (with the maximum elastic deformation no greater than 10% and the maximum permanent deformation no more than 5%) when subjected to horizontal inertia forces such as those created by a turning vehicle. By using a pallet wrapping machine, you can ensure total load security, as defined by the directive, is always achieved. The machinery delivers consistently wrapped pallets with adequate film coverage for total load integrity, unmatched by manual operations. Features like film roping, film tensioning programs, and film pre-stretch settings can enhance the stability of vulnerable pallets. Using a pallet wrapping machine guarantees full compliance with the EU directives in place.

Reduced Film Consumption

Cost Efficiency with Greater Stretch Ratios

Automating your pallet wrapping process with machinery usually reduces the amount of film used considerably, thus saving on costs. Machinery can exert a greater stretch capacity on pallet wrap film than an individual can when handling it manually, while still maintaining its integrity. This allows you to achieve more wrapped pallets per each roll of stretch film your business uses. Our range of stretch films have a stretch ratio of up to 400% versus standard hand wrap films which can be far less. Using significantly less stretch film translates to cost savings as you will need to purchase fewer rolls.

Labour Savings

Efficiency and Consistency

Cost savings can also be achieved in terms of labour as the equipment can match speeds that rival the work capacity of several operators, representing a short payback on your investment. Additionally, total consistency is guaranteed when using a stretch wrapping machine compared to a hand-wrapping set-up. The equipment ensures that every part of the pallet is wrapped adequately and evenly, avoiding areas of the pallet being overlooked or more film being used than required.

Operator Health and Safety

Minimizing Health Risks

Automated stretch wrapping equipment can be beneficial for more than just your production efficiency and profit margins. Manual pallet wrapping poses several risks to your operators from hazards associated with bending, lifting, repetitive movements, and trips and slips. By trading the heavy lifting for the touch of a button, these common health and safety pitfalls can be avoided.

Next Steps

Customized Solutions

Looking to improve your stretch wrapping procedures? Our team can visit your site and carry out a thorough audit of your needs. This involves a survey of your bespoke requirements to improve performance and reduce wastage, including stretch ratio, micron, operator capacity, and warehouse layout. We will also calculate exactly how much it costs you to wrap each of your pallets and show you where and how savings can be achieved. Our team can also conduct dedicated stretch film trials with your palletized products. Following our investigation, you can rest assured that the pallet wrapping solution we supply or recommend will meet all of your needs perfectly. Call today to book in your audit.

Pallet Wrappers: Making Shipping Better, Simpler, Cheaper, and Faster

You can have it all by making sure the pallet wrapper you buy has one important feature – an integrated scale. People often overlook this feature because they think of pallet wrapping and weighing as two separate tasks. A machine that multitasks by performing both at one time saves labor, time, and money.

Contact us to discuss your requirements of roll palletizer. Our experienced sales team can help you identify the options that best suit your needs.

Save Time and Money

Pallet wrapping and weighing separately means handling each load twice, which can add anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute-and-a-half to the processing time for each one. Utilizing a pallet wrapper with an integrated scale can eliminate this extra step, enhancing efficiency significantly.

A company paying their operators $12/hour and stretch wrapping 50 pallets per day could save anywhere from $6,250 to $18,750 over the first five years – just in labor costs. Accurate weight means no estimating, so you can calculate correct freight costs and only pay what you actually owe. Reweighing fees add up to $1 billion annually, and each fine can cost you anywhere from $10 to $15. Integrated scales can also be connected to computers and printers for easy and secure data collection and labels. In fact, operators can now use a smartphone app to send and receive scale data via a wireless module.

Quality Control: Ensuring Accurate Shipping

The integrated scale makes it easy and automatic to weigh every load you ship, and in doing so, becomes the final step in quality control. You can check the pick list weight against the scale’s measurement and flag any differences from load to load. Accurate weight records can also provide a layer of security by confirming that pallet loads arrived intact and with nothing missing.

A Real-World Situation

For an intriguing example, check out this blog post, "The Case of the Missing Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon." The investigation that led to that national news story began when weighing as a final quality control method uncovered that three cases of the legendary liquor – valued at $26,000 – had been stolen from the center of the load.

What should be no mystery by now, however, is that weighing every load can save you significant time, money, and uncertainty. Integrating a scale into your pallet wrapper is simply the easiest way to make that happen and should be the one important feature you don’t overlook when you consider which stretch wrapper is right for you.

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