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Which Packaging Materials Can Be Heat Sealed?

Heat sealing poly bags is a cost-effective packaging method many types of products while providing high quality with airtight and water-tight seals. Heat sealing does not require additional material to open or close a bag; it just requires the right type of heat sealing equipment and the right type of poly bags. Auto bagging companies use professional heat sealing equipment, which are versatile and popular for packaging many types of goods.

Types of Poly Bags Used for Heat Sealing

Various types of packaging materials can be used with heat sealing equipment, such as polyethylene (PE), polystyrene (PS), polypropylene (PP), and polyvinyl chloride (PVC). These types of packaging materials are used in pouches and bags and are easily sealed with a heat sealing machine to fuse the ends of the plastic bag together.

Two of the most common types of polybag materials are made from polyethylene and polyethylene terephthalate (PET). PE is a lightweight material that can be heated up, fused together, and will cool again quickly after the removal of the heating element. Low-density polyethylene (LDPE) is particularly an ideal choice for polybag material to be heat-sealed.

LDPE is a common material for many poly bags used for heat sealing as the heat sealing equipment is hot enough to fuse the two sides together and will fuse quickly when heat and pressure are removed. PE is an ideal material for heat-sealing bags as it will contract to make an even tighter seal when cooling.

Mylar bags are also a common type of poly bag material to be used for heat sealing, made from polyethylene terephthalate, PET. This type of material provides transparency, high tensile strength, dimensional stability, and electrical insulation. Mylar bags are commonly used to package electrical components, medical products, and food items due to the airtightness achieved by heat sealing. Mylar bags are considered ideal for packaging sensitive items and one of the most effective for providing resistance to moisture. Mylar bags provide an ultra-low water vapor transmission rate to ensure that this type of bag protects products from various types of hazards that are often encountered during shipping and storage.

Benefits of Heat Sealing Poly Bags

Heat sealing polybags provides many benefits for manufacturing and packaging applications, including:

• Airtight and water-tight seal to keep out moisture and debris
• Clean finished edges for attractive bagging options
• Provides an effective seal on bags of all sizes
• Durable seal protects goods during shipping, handling, and sale

PPS Offers Heat Sealing And Auto Bagging Services

Peoria Production Solutions, PPS, is a contract packaging company with more than 80 years of experience offering a wide range of packaging and bagging services. We utilize auto bagging technology and heat sealing equipment, including a heat tunnel, heat sealer, hot stamp imprinter, and vertical continuous band sealer with stand. Our staff is highly trained and experienced with heat sealing various polybag material types.

PPS is a leading contract packaging and bagging company utilizing modern heat sealing equipment, more than a dozen types of auto bagging equipment, and over 50 types of auto bagging machines.

PPS provides production solutions for companies of all sizes with a wide range of secondary packaging and bagging services. We offer the capacity, resources, and skilled staff to meet your production needs with quality products delivered on time. Contact us to learn more about our many secondary packaging solutions, including auto-bagging and heat-sealing polybags.

How to Choose the Best Kitting Company To Meet Your Needs

This article was originally published on March 9, 2021 but has been updated on January 23, 2023.

Companies that provide kitting services help businesses to achieve greater efficiency and productivity in their own processes. Kitting services typically include combining numerous individual items with individual SKUs into a combined kit with one SKU. Kitting can be performed to combine similar items in a retail kit for sale and can also be performed to group necessary components together needed in a manufacturing process.

Businesses that are looking for kitting services can reap big benefits with increased productivity, increased in-house capacity, and improved cost-efficient processes.

What to Look for in a Kitting Company Partner

Choosing the best kitting company to partner with is a big decision and will affect the overall results businesses receive. Companies that choose to outsource kitting operations need to have a good understanding of the qualifications and services provided by their kitting partner. Some of the most important questions to ask of your potential kitting services company include:

1) What are their internal quality procedures? Is the kitting company registered to ISO9001:2015 standards? Does the company track and measure quality goals such as on-time delivery?
2) How is customer-supplied material accounted for? Does the company utilize an automated inventory tracking system to account for all customer-supplied material?
3) Can the company meet your lead times with a quick enough turnaround? Does the kitting provider have the capacity and resources to turn around your kitting requirements within your timeframe?
4) How much experience does the kitting provider have in performing kitting services? Is kitting something that this provider does regularly or just occasionally? How experienced are they with kitting processes, and how well have employees been trained on proper kitting procedures?

These are some of the most important questions to ask of a potential kitting provider to ensure that they follow strict quality standards, they can account for each and every piece of customer-supplied material, they can meet your lead time deliveries, and they are experienced with performing quality kitting services.

Why Choose Peoria Production Solutions for Your Kitting Needs

Peoria Production Solutions, PPS, has been providing kitting and assembly services to a variety of companies for more than 80 years. We have the experience, the capacity, and skilled, trained staff to meet nearly any kitting and assembly requirement. PPS is an ISO9001:2015 certified kitting company providing high-quality kitting services to some of the largest companies in the country.

PPS is fast, reliable, and meets rigorous performance standards set by clients. For a streamlined process, PPS is the perfect solution for your kitting and assembly services. PPS is here for the customers. We are 100 percent self-funded and a non-profit, meaning pricing is straightforward, transparent, and extremely competitive. Located conveniently in the Midwest, Peoria Production Shop can provide solutions to the following problems:

• Overflow or lack of storage
• Substandard mechanical assembly
• Urgent deadlines
• Ineffective JIT sorting
• Repackaging and shipping
• Inconsistent or poor sewing
• Inadequate bagging, wrapping, or packaging

Peoria Production Shop has the capabilities to order components from suppliers, coordinate routes and schedules, ensure quality by performing incoming, in-process and final inspections, all while meeting customers requirements. Additionally, clients have access to a sophisticated and secure program that allows customers to monitor orders and receive alerts along the way.

Peoria Production Shop offers a highly dedicated, well-trained, and highly productive group of employees that are here to serve the client at every point in the production process. Contact us to learn how to improve your productivity and profitability with PPS, a leader among kitting companies.

Lean Kitting Supports Lean Manufacturing

This article was previously published on March 16, 2021, but has been updated on January 20, 2023.
Lean kitting processes provide many important benefits to manufacturers that improve efficiency and productivity, all leading to increased profitability. Kitting is a strategy that involves taking components from multiple SKUs and combining them into one kit with one SKU. Kitting in manufacturing allows for the delivery of a particular kit of parts or components that are needed for production at the precise time and place they are required.

Lean Kitting Supports Lean Manufacturing

A lean kitting process can help speed up the overall manufacturing or assembly process and reduce labor costs. The concept of kitting can be used in nearly any company. Kitting combines various products and components, so users always have the right inventory at the right time.

Lean manufacturing aims to remove bottlenecks and waste from work processes to improve efficiency. Waste is any action or process that does not add value to the customer. There are eight wastes of lean manufacturing:

• Transport – moving materials from one place to another does not add any value to the customer. Minimizing transportation by locating items or production plants close together minimizes transportation costs and waste.
• Inventory – excess inventory is wasteful in that it requires transportation expenses and storage expenses which require utilities, and could even become obsolete if produced too far in advance. Producing excess inventory is inefficient, ties up cash, and reduces cash flow.
• Motion – any wasted motions take away from efficient, lean processes and can include factory workers who must walk to other areas to get necessary products, bend over, reach, or perform motions that could otherwise be consolidated into a more streamlined operation.
• Waiting – any form of waiting is wasteful and lean manufacturing which may include employees waiting for open machinery or waiting on other employees to perform their tasks before they can continue with theirs. Identifying all forms of waiting in your production process and finding solutions to eliminate wait time eliminates this waste and promotes more productive work time.
• Over-processing – overprocessing is wasteful when overengineering or working on products does not add value to the customer and does not need to be done. Any process performed that is not required as a form of waste.
• Defects – if products are produced out of spec or with defects, this is one of the biggest wastes for companies as the defective product must either be trashed or reworked. In either case, it is extremely wasteful to produce defective products and can harm a company’s reputation if defects reach the customer.
• Skills – managers need to know their employees and assess skill levels to ensure that all employees’ talents are being utilized in the most productive way possible. A continual training program helps employees maintain their skills and learn new ones and cross-training further promotes efficient, productive work.

Identify Components to Be Kitted

The first step to reducing waste is to recognize that it exists and to have an effective method for identifying waste. It is important to think about the final product and customer and work backward to the very beginning of the manufacturing process. Production managers can follow a few simple steps to help them identify the products to be kitted that will most contribute to a lean manufacturing process.
Consider these steps in kitting that eliminate SKUs and streamline the process.

• Walk through the shop floor – Analyze how parts are organized. Lean methods require an in-person observation of where work is performed and the value that adds to the overall project. Taking note of all of the areas that could result in potential waste is a great way to visualize the process. Is there a way to conserve energy and costs by consolidating inventory?
• Identify inefficiency – Check for bottlenecks in the process and take note of any components that are hard to track. Material that is not combined can be difficult to keep track of and store. Consider combining products to eliminate any added waste.
• Work together – In order for lean kitting processes to be successful, the entire team needs to work to identify waste and improve processes. Once areas are identified for inefficiencies, collaborate to find solutions that one might not have identified on their own. Discuss solutions with people that are a part of every step of the process.

Once manufacturers have identified all of the areas of waste and potential solutions, working with an experienced kitting and assembly provider can deliver the most benefit and cost savings.

Peoria Production Solutions Offers Lean Kitting for Lean Manufacturing

Peoria Production Solutions offers more than 80 years of experience in kitting and assembly of various products and components for some of the largest companies in the world. We practice a strict quality policy as part of our ISO9001:2015 certification and provide full lot code traceability of all parts and components with our Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. We practice Value Stream Mapping (VSM) to identify any bottlenecks in the process and cross-train employees for collaborative and efficient workflow.

Peoria Production Solutions is a leading kitting and assembly house for Fortune 100 companies and businesses of all sizes. Since we are a not-for-profit organization focused on creating jobs rather than profits, we provide the unique ability to deliver the most cost-effective solutions to manufacturers and distributors. Contact us to learn more about our high quality and cost-efficiencies with lean kitting processes.

How Kitting In Manufacturing Increases the Bottom Line

This article was originally published on March 23, 2021 and updated on January 17, 2023

Kitting and assembly services are commonly used in many manufacturing processes to improve operational efficiencies, reduce bottlenecks, and help to eliminate wasted time and space. Kitting in manufacturing improves productivity and profitability for manufacturers, with positive results realized with an improved bottom line.

What Is Kitting in Manufacturing?

Kitting in manufacturing is performed to help all production employees become more efficient by providing a kit of components exactly when and where they are needed. Manufacturers must define the best components to be kitted and the best location for delivering a kit. Logistics kitting in manufacturing delivers required, assembled parts to the exact point of use which saves employees time and labor and looking for parts needed at a particular point in the production process.

Kitting in manufacturing and logistics kitting can both be performed by a contract kitting and assembly provider to improve efficient manufacturing operations.

Kitting Improves Operational Efficiencies

Kitting improves operational efficiencies whether performed in-house or off-site by a contract kitting company. Manufacturers that outsource kitting realize many benefits with preassembled kits delivered to the exact point of use when and where required as work in process moves throughout the production cycle. Kitting in manufacturing saves employees from searching for necessary products and components when they need them and provides many benefits that improve a company’s bottom line.

Some of the most important benefits realized with kitting in manufacturing include:

Saves space – manufacturers that outsource kitting eliminate the need to set up kitting and assembly workstations and save internal space better devoted to their niche market.

Saves time – when assemblers receive a kit of required components, it eliminates the need to pull parts from inventory, to walk back and forth throughout the shop floor gathering necessary items.

Reduces labor expenses – employees are more efficient when receiving kits of required components

Reduces shipping costs – Kitting allows for the sale of many single components to be consolidated into one order which ultimately lowers shipping costs.

Reduces packaging and labeling expenses – by combining multiple components into one kit, individual items are combined into one SKU, which can be managed in inventory with one label.

Contact Kitting Services Help Manufacturers

Contract kitting companies help manufacturers to realize all of these benefits by performing tedious, time-consuming kitting services off-site and delivering everything that’s needed back to the company. This allows manufacturers to realize all the benefits of outsourcing kitting and to utilize their own space more wisely and effectively. Contract kitting and assembly companies are experienced in efficient, quality kitting processes and focused on helping their customers meet their production goals.

PPS Offers Contract Kitting and Assembly for Manufacturers

Peoria Production Solutions, PPS, offers contract kitting and assembly services for manufacturers with more than 80 years of experience. We utilize a large, modern, state-of-the-art facility with the capacity and staff to set up dedicated kitting and assembly workstations to meet customer-specific requirements. All incoming customer-supplied material is tracked with our Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system with full lot code traceability for complete accountability of all items.

We provide kitting for manufacturing services to companies of all sizes for a variety of product types, such as toolbox kits and other items. Kitting in manufacturing improves the efficient flow of goods and provides many additional benefits.

Peoria Production Solutions has over 80 years of experience in kitting and assembly for some of the largest manufacturers in the world. We utilize the strengths of our employees, our modern, state-of-the-art facility, and vast resources to provide efficient, cost-effective kitting and assembly. Contact us for all your kitting in manufacturing solutions.

What is Contract Assembly in Manufacturing?

This article was originally published on March 30, 2021 but updated on 1/12/2023

Contract assembly in manufacturing provides many benefits to manufacturers of all sizes, whether small companies producing niche market products or large OEMs manufacturing consumer electronics or automobiles. Regardless of the market or products manufactured, all business managers seek the most cost-efficient production method that maintains a high level of quality.

Types of Assembly in Manufacturing

Many manufacturing processes require the assembly of various components or partial units for further final assembly into a larger unit or to prepare products for sale. Contract assembly providers help manufacturers to meet production goals by assembling a variety of products to return to their production line when and where assembled components are required. Manufacturers that outsource assembly and subassembly processes can reap big benefits by not performing these tedious tasks in-house.

Contract assembly in manufacturing is often beneficial as production companies can focus on their niche manufacturing market rather than devoting staff and space to assembling products. Contract assemblers perform tasks such as small parts assembly of housings or electromechanical switches used in automotive processes that must be assembled prior to insertion into a larger component. Assembly can be performed manually by hand or with the assistance of automated technology.

Experienced small-part contract assemblers provide assembly and subassembly in manufacturing to help manufacturers achieve the most efficient production rates to produce final, assembled products.

Contract Assembly in Manufacturing

Contract assembly operates in a niche market for the manufacturing industry. These companies work on a project-to-project basis. Outsourcing assembly work to a contract assembly house can be a profitable opportunity for manufacturers, allowing them to keep their own production and labor costs down while farming out work that an assembly house can do quicker and with a higher level of quality and expertise, as that is their niche.

Contract assembly services add value to OEMs through efficient and cost-effective assembly and kitting services.

Building Long-Term Customer Relationships

OEMs that establish long-term relationships with contract assembly houses stand to gain the most benefit. Peoria Production Solutions is an experienced contract assembly provider and acts as an extension of your team with high-quality assembly services provided with consistent quality. We offer continual support for current and new projects, always ready to evaluate the best solution to provide the most cost-effective assembly work possible.

We practice value stream mapping exercises to ensure the most efficient operations and conduct continual improvement exercises, passing cost savings onto our customers. Long-term relationships benefit both the OEM and contract assembly house, a valuable part of major supply chains.

Contract Assembly for Caterpillar

Peoria Production Solutions has been providing solutions to Caterpillar, Inc. for more than 80 years, since 1941. The Fortune 100 construction machinery and mobile equipment industry leader has come to rely on our quick and high-quality service for a wide variety of contract operations. We provide reliable secondary operations such as contract assembly, kitting, packaging, palletizing, sewing, and more.

Peoria Production Solutions has been providing valuable contract assembly services for more than 80 years. We are dedicated to a high level of quality as part of our ISO9001:2015 certification and a commitment to excellence. Contact us for all your contract assembly in manufacturing needs.