Protecting goods during transportation and storage is paramount In the world of packaging and logistics. Two popular methods for securing items are stretch wrapping and shrink wrapping. While these techniques may seem similar at first glance, they serve different purposes and are suited for different types of packaging needs. Understanding the differences between stretch wrapping pallets and shrink wrapping can help businesses choose the right method for their specific requirements.
Stretch wrapping is a process used to secure and protect multiple boxes or items stacked on a pallet (also known as a skid). This method involves wrapping a stretchable plastic film around the palletized load. The tension in the film holds the items tightly together, providing stability and protection.
Stretch wrapping is commonly used for:
Securing large shipments of boxed goods.
Stabilizing loads to prevent shifting during transportation.
Protecting products from dust, dirt, and moisture.
Benefits
Enhanced Stability: Stretch wrapping provides excellent load stability, reducing the risk of damage during transit.
Cost-Effective: It uses minimal material to cover large pallets, making it an economical option.
Versatile: Suitable for various load sizes and shapes, making it ideal for diverse industries.
Process
Preparation: The pallet is loaded with boxes or items.
Wrapping: A stretch film is wrapped around the pallet, either manually or using a stretch wrapping machine.
Securing: The film is stretched to create tension, ensuring the load is securely held together.
For more information on how stretch wrapping can benefit your business, visit our Palletizing Services page.
Shrink wrapping involves covering individual items or small bundles of products with a shrink film, which is then heated to shrink tightly around the items. This method is commonly used for packaging individual products or smaller groups of items rather than large palletized loads.
Shrink wrapping is ideal for:
Packaging individual products for retail.
Bundling small items together.
Providing a tamper-evident seal for consumer goods.
Benefits
Product Protection: Shrink wrapping provides a tight seal that protects items from dust, moisture, and tampering.
Visibility: The clear film allows for easy identification and inspection of products.
Professional Appearance: It gives products a clean and professional look, enhancing their shelf appeal.
Process
Wrapping: Items are placed in a shrink film or bag.
Heating: The wrapped items are exposed to heat using a heat gun or shrink tunnel, causing the film to shrink tightly around them.
Cooling: Once the film has shrunk, it cools and forms a secure, protective seal.
For detailed insights into how shrink wrapping can enhance your packaging process, visit our Shrink Wrapping page.
Key Differences:
Scope of Application:
Stretch Wrapping: Used for securing multiple items on a pallet.
Shrink Wrapping: Applied to individual items or small bundles.
Process:
Stretch Wrapping: Involves stretching a film around the load.
Shrink Wrapping: Uses heat to shrink the film around the product.
Purpose:
Stretch Wrapping: Provides stability and protection for palletized loads.
Shrink Wrapping: Offers a protective, tamper-evident seal for individual products.
Stretch wrapping is ideal for securing large, palletized shipments, ensuring stability and protection during transit. On the other hand, shrink wrapping is perfect for packaging individual items or small bundles, providing a clear, protective seal that enhances product appearance and security.
Peoria Production Solutions (PPS) offers both stretch wrapping and shrink wrapping services to meet your diverse packaging requirements. Whether you need to secure large pallets or protect individual products, our expert team can provide the right solution for your business. Contact PPS today to learn more about our packaging services and how we can help you optimize your packaging process.
In today’s fast-paced global market, the safe and efficient transport of goods stands as a pivotal cornerstone of success for businesses across industries. The stakes are high, as the integrity of your shipment directly impacts your bottom line and customer satisfaction. Outsourcing freight management might be a solution for you.
Crating and Freighting: Pivotal in Shipping Goods
At its core, crating, and freighting involve the secure packaging of goods in specially designed crates that protect them from the hazards of transportation, whether by land, sea, or air. The process of freight crating and shipping emerges not just as a logistical task, but as a strategic operation that can significantly impact your bottom line. Crating and freighting play a pivotal role in ensuring the seamless movement of goods across borders and oceans.
Critical and Complex: Outsourcing Freight Management Provides a Solution
This critical process is not just about placing items in boxes and shipping them off; it’s a meticulous science that safeguards the heart of international commerce. The complexities involved—from understanding international shipping regulations to ensuring the utmost protection for your products during transit—present a compelling case for outsourcing these critical services.
Understanding the nuances of crating—such as selecting materials that offer the best protection for your specific goods, employing sustainable practices, and adhering to international shipping regulations—becomes crucial. It’s about crafting a tailored approach that meets the unique needs of each shipment, from the smallest component to the largest machinery.
Peoria Production Solutions (PPS) is a leader in providing integrated packaging and palletizing solutions, offering expert freight crating and shipping services designed to seamlessly align with your business objectives. By leveraging the latest in crating technology and logistics management, PPS ensures your products arrive safely and on time, every time.
Best Practices for Crating and Freighting
When considering the best practices for crating and freighting, a few key considerations rise to the forefront. Firstly, insuring your freight is not just an option; it’s a necessity. It acts as a safety net, ensuring that your business is protected against unforeseen events. Secondly, the protection of goods during storage and transit cannot be overstated. This includes everything from choosing the right materials for your crates to strategically packing your items to prevent movement and potential damage. Each step is a calculated effort to ensure that your shipment arrives at its destination in the same condition it left.
This is where Peoria Production Solutions (PPS) comes into play. With a wealth of experience in providing comprehensive packaging solutions, PPS stands ready to navigate these complexities on your behalf. Our team at PPS doesn’t just offer services; we offer peace of mind, ensuring that every aspect of your freight crating and shipping is handled with the utmost care and precision. From custom palletizing and crating solutions that meet the exact specifications of your products to the careful consideration of protective measures, PPS is your partner in ensuring that your goods are not just shipped but are delivered with the reliability and quality your business deserves.
Protecting Goods During Storage and Transit
The journey of goods from warehouse to customer involves several stages, each with its own set of risks. Ensuring the protection of goods during storage and transit requires a multifaceted approach, focusing on choosing the right materials, strategic packing, and other best practices to mitigate potential damage.
Selecting the Right Materials for Crates
The foundation of effective freight protection begins with selecting the appropriate materials for your crates. The choice of material should be dictated by the nature of the goods being shipped, considering factors such as weight, size, fragility, and value.
Wooden Crates: Ideal for heavy and oversized items, wooden crates offer sturdy protection and can be customized to fit any size. They’re also stackable, which is beneficial for storage.
Corrugated Fiberboard: Best suited for lighter items, corrugated fiberboard is cost-effective and offers good shock absorption. It’s customizable and recyclable, making it a sustainable option.
Plastic Crates: Durable and resistant to moisture and pests, plastic crates are perfect for items that require additional protection from the elements. They are reusable and easy to clean.
It’s also essential to consider the use of sustainable materials. Opting for recyclable or reusable materials not only reduces environmental impact but can also be cost-effective in the long run.
Strategic Packing to Prevent Movement and Damage
The way items are packed within a crate is crucial to preventing damage during transit. Strategic packing minimizes movement and cushions items against shocks and vibrations.
Filling the Crate to Capacity: Use packing materials such as bubble wrap, foam inserts, or packing peanuts to fill any voids within the crate. This prevents items from shifting and absorbing impact.
Layering: Place heavier items at the bottom of the crate and lighter items on top. This distributes weight evenly and prevents crush damage to lighter goods.
Wrapping Individual Items: Fragile items should be wrapped individually to provide extra protection against scratches, chips, or breakage.
Securing Items: Use straps, bands, or wraps to secure items to the crate’s base or sides, ensuring they stay in place during movement.
Protection During Storage
Storage conditions can significantly affect the integrity of goods awaiting transit. Controlling environmental factors is key to maintaining product quality.
Moisture Control: Use desiccants or silica gel packets inside crates to absorb moisture. Ensure storage areas are well-ventilated to prevent the buildup of condensation.
Temperature Regulation: Keep goods in a climate-controlled environment to protect against extreme temperatures that can cause damage or degradation.
Pest Management: Regularly inspect storage areas for signs of pests. Use appropriate pest control measures to prevent infestation.
Regular Inspection and Maintenance
Regular inspection of both the stored goods and their packaging is crucial. Check for signs of wear and tear on crates and replace or repair them as needed. Inspect items for any damage or deterioration and address issues promptly to prevent further damage. By adhering to these best practices, businesses can significantly reduce the risk of damage to goods during storage and transit, ensuring they arrive at their destination in pristine condition.
Contract Packaging Company Offers Solutions
Peoria Production Solutions (PPS) incorporates these strategies into our comprehensive packaging solutions, tailoring our approach to meet the specific needs of each shipment. Our expertise in selecting the right materials, strategic packing, and ensuring optimal storage conditions exemplifies our commitment to delivering excellence and reliability in every package we handle.
When navigating the complexities of freight crating and shipping, the right partnership can make all the difference in ensuring the safety, efficiency, and reliability of your logistics operations. With over 80 years of experience in the industry, Peoria Production Solutions (PPS) stands as a testament to excellence and innovation in contract packaging and assembly services. Our tenure in business is not just a number; it’s a reflection of our enduring commitment to quality, customer satisfaction, and continuous improvement.
As a leading contract packaging company, PPS brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to every project, large or small. Our dedicated team leverages the latest technologies and best practices discussed, ensuring that your products are not just packaged, but are prepared and protected against the rigors of transit. Our comprehensive suite of services, including custom crating and detailed logistics planning, is designed to meet the unique needs of each client, providing solutions that are not only effective but also efficient and environmentally responsible.
Choosing PPS means partnering with a company that understands the importance of your shipment’s integrity, from storage through to delivery. We pride ourselves on our ability to innovate and adapt in a dynamic industry, ensuring that our clients receive the best possible service at every turn. Trust Peoria Production Solutions and contact us to be your partner in navigating the complexities of freight crating and shipping.
All types of finished goods and raw materials are shipped between businesses every day. As companies receive truckloads of goods shipped on pallets, they must find a way to keep their facility and inventory organized. A proper flow of goods and organization is key to achieving streamlined and productive activities.
Here are some tips to organize the many pallets of product crowding your facility.
Unpack shipments quickly – when receiving pallets full of boxes or cartons stacked upon each other, it is best to unpack shipments quickly. Unpacking pallets quickly allows for immediate inspection of incoming material and for accurate inventory counts when adding materials directly to stock upon receipt. Shipments that are left to sit in a warehouse become a serious quality issue and may contain substandard products and be left unaccounted for until receiving procedures are performed.
Follow meticulous receiving procedures – every business should have written work instructions for receiving procedures which include checking products for quality issues, checking paperwork such as packing slips against the purchase order and performing in-house procedures to add these products to inventory. Automated inventory systems allow for label printing and scanning on the spot at receiving stations to quickly add material to inventory.
Keep inventory categorized and organized – following strict work processes for inventory management is critical for companies to know exactly what raw materials and finished goods are on hand. Inventory should be organized to follow each facility’s accounting method, such as First-in-First-out (FIFO), or Last-in-First-out (LIFO), or other established methods. Inventory should be easy to locate, easy to verify, and easy to access and load for transportation to the next destination. Whether storing raw materials to take to your production floor or storing finished goods ready for shipment to customers, every business must know exactly what is on hand at any given moment to ensure no disruptions with production and order fulfillment requirements.
Consider color-coded stretch film – most pallets are secured with stretch wrapping film, typically clear in color. Stretch film is available and other colors as well, and can be a helpful tool to quickly identify pallets of product in one category versus those in another. Working with an experienced packaging and palletizing company can help you to understand your options for organizing pallets of product.
Create and follow a streamlined floor plan – every company should have a system for an efficient and streamlined floor plan. Loading docks should be dedicated to either just receiving or just shipping when possible, and any backtracking of products should be eliminated whenever feasible. Ideally, incoming materials are received in one area, and all receiving procedures are followed to move products to their correct locations. Raw materials should then be moved straight to required production areas, where they are processed and transported to the next area, such as quality inspection, packaging, and shipping, without backtracking across any prior floor space. This is the most efficient flow of goods that helps to improve productivity and prevent contamination.
Speak with a contract packagingand palletizing company for more information on how you can improve the efficiency and organization in your facility.
PPS Offers Packaging and Palletizing Solutions
Peoria Production Solutions, PPS, offers secondary packaging and palletizing solutions to businesses of all sizes in a wide range of industries. We have been providing production solutions such as packaging, wrapping, kitting, assembly, palletizing, and more for more than 80 years. As an ISO9001:2015 registered company, we follow strict quality policies to provide added assurance to our customers. We customize your production solutions to meet your needs, such as packaging, palletizing, storing, and shipping per specific customer requirements.
PPS specializes in providing value-added secondary services that improve your productivity and help companies meet production and order fulfillment goals. We utilize automated equipment in our state-of-the-art facility, with 17 shipping and receiving bays and ample capacity to ensure a strictly controlled flow of goods. Contact us with any questions and to learn more about how we can improve the efficiency and organization of your facility with our packaging and palletizing services.
An effective strategy to manage any company’s supply chain management is critical for inbound and outbound logistics to work in harmony. Inbound logistics refers to a company’s requirements for receiving goods and supplies, such as raw materials for manufacturers. Outbound logistics fulfill a company’s demand for orders. Perfectly timing incoming materials is important to meet order demands on time and for cost-efficient inventory management.
Businesses that provide contract assembly, packaging, and palletizingcan help manufacturers of all sizes improve inbound and outbound logistics.
Inbound Logistics
Many manufacturers utilize just-in-time inventory management to schedule incoming raw materials and supplies just-in-time to go straight into the production of finished goods. This alleviates the need to store raw materials for an extended period of time which increases time in inventory, capacity required, and overall expenses, which eat into profits in the long run. Just-in-time inbound logistics allow for a company to receive supplies in their warehouse, fulfillment center, or distribution center to meet all requirements in a timely fashion without any excess waste.
Outbound Logistics
Outbound logistics is all about moving finished goods out of inventory to fulfill and deliver orders to retail establishments or end users. Outbound logistics requires effective warehouse picking and packing, packaging, quality inspection, labeling, and shipping on time to meet order requirements. Streamlined outbound logistic processes improve a company’s productivity and profitability.
With the continuing increase of e-commerce, companies that improve their logistics processes for maximum efficiency will experience many benefits. Companies that fail to evaluate and improve logistics will continually struggle to maintain an adequate supply of goods and meet order fulfillment on time, thus jeopardizing customer satisfaction and overall sustainability.
Efficient inbound and outbound logistics improve the flow of goods throughout the entire company supply chain, increasing inventory turns, order accuracy, and optimizing the speed of delivery. This leads to cost reductions, maximum sales and revenue, and increased profitability.
Outsourcing Packaging and Palletizing Services
Contract packaging and palletizing companies focus solely on helping other companies meet their production goals. When manufacturers outsource kitting and assembly, packing, packaging, and palletizing, they can focus on other core manufacturing processes while relying on logistics experts to meet their needs. This improves internal efficiencies and the flow of goods.
When manufacturers ship components for assembly or finished goods to a contract packager, they can rely on those products being packaged properly and efficiently, labeled and palletized ready for shipping. Combining packaging and palletizing services can facilitate packaging needs quicker and oftentimes for less expense than paying for internal labor. Outsourcing to a contract packaging company also frees up internal floorspace, increasing capacity.
PPS Offers Experienced Packaging and Palletizing Services
Peoria Production Solutions, PPS, has been providing contract packaging servicesfor more than 80 years. PPS offers industry-leading packaging services with experience in quality packing materials and processes. We offer kitting, assembly, auto bag filling, wrapping, packing, repackaging, secondary packaging, stretch wrapping, and palletizing. PPS follows strict quality policies as part of our ISO9001:2015 registration, with a fully trained staff dedicated to total customer satisfaction.
We help businesses to improve their logistics processes by providing quality packaging and palletizing services with quick turnaround time and complete traceability with our automated Enterprise Resource Planning, ERP, system. Leave the packaging and palletizing to us, and have confidence in receiving quality packaged products, wrapped and palletized for protection, shipped to your specification.
PPS is a leading contract packaging and palletizing company in Illinois, helping companies to meet production goals as a valuable part of many business supply chains. We utilize automated and modern equipment in our state-of-the-art facility, with 15 shipping and receiving bays for an organized and streamlined flow of goods. Contact us with any questions and learn how we can improve your packaging and palletizing services for more efficient company logistics.
Proper packaging is essential to protect goods throughout the entire shipping journey, and palletizing is one of the best ways to ensure your cargo arrives safe and sound. Pallets, also called “skids,” are transport plates typically made of wood that provide a foundation to stack packages on with open slats at the bottom for easy handling with a forklift or pallet jack. Palletizing and stretch wrapping packages protect them during loading, shipping, and unloading and support efficient shipping processes.
Safety First When Palletizing
It is important to make sure that your palletizing and stretch wrapping processes are efficient and safe for all workers, including warehouse and transportation employees. There should be a limit on how many rows high packages can be stacked with consideration given to the weight and type of material packaged. For example, bottled water may seem harmless enough, although when stacked high and toppled over, this has been the cause of more than one tragic death in warehouses.
Working with an experienced packaging and palletizing company can alleviate in-house palletizing needs. Safety should always be the first concern when palletizing any type of goods. Here are some freight palletizing tips to maximize safety and efficiency.
Tips to Maximize Safety and Efficiency When Palletizing
1. Use the right size of pallet – make sure that your pallet is big enough to hold all packages without hanging over the edges and that it is sturdy enough to support the weight load.
2. Use only quality pallets and shipping materials – never use pallets with protruding nail heads or broken boards. Quality packaging materials such as undamaged, sturdy corrugated boxes, quality pallets, and quality stretch wrap all contribute to protecting packages on pallets.
3. Make sure all boxes are packed properly – every individual box should be packed full without excess air space to help prevent the box from being crushed or damaged in transit. Proper packaging also more evenly distributes the weight when stacked on a skid. Fill any void areas with the appropriate type of dunnage, such as air pillows, paper, Styrofoam peanuts, etc. Seal all boxes securely with quality packing tape.
This is one area where a contract packager can help companies as they are experienced in proper packaging methods, knowledgeable about quality packaging materials, and efficiently perform quality packaging processes. Using acontract packagerwith experience in palletizing adds a lot of value to manufacturers and many types of businesses.
4. Carefully stack boxes on pallets – stack boxes together with the weight evenly distributed. Place heavier boxes on the bottom and lighter boxes on top, staggering or aligning the boxes for maximum stability. Incorrect stacking of boxes can lead to worker injury or damage to cargo. You can add a layer of flattened cardboard in between rows of boxes for added stability and weight distribution, which is particularly helpful when shipping several small packages instead of fewer larger boxes.
5. Use plastic or metal strapping – secure any individual packages that are 150 pounds or more with bands or straps. Make sure all straps and banding are close to the load to mitigate damage.
6. Use quality stretch wrap – boxes stacked in columns and rows can be sensitive to shifting. The best solution to keep your packages and places to use quality stretch wrap that can be applied manually or with the help of a stretch wrapping machine.
7.Avoid stacking boxes in Pyramids – even when stretch wrap, boxes stacked in a pyramid shape are much less stable, with all packages at the top at high risk for damage. Boxes that are evenly distributed on the pallet are much more secure and stable.
Contact Peoria Production Solutions, PPS, for assistance with your palletizing and stretch wrapping needs.
Peoria Production Solutions is an industry-leading contract packaging company with more than 80 years of experience. PPS offers a host of secondary packaging services and production solutions, including all types of secondary packaging, flexible packaging, kitting, assembly, repackaging, palletizing, and more. Contact us to learn more about improving your packaging and logistics processes with high-quality, experienced palletizing services.
From the outside, a warehouse and a fulfillment center both appear to be very similar in that they are both usually very large buildings with several overhead doors and shipping docks. This allows trucks to easily pull in for loading or unloading of pallets full of goods for efficient pickups and deliveries.
Both types of buildings hold physical products of inventory for a wide range of business types, although this may be where the similarities end. Each type of building provides very different services for their customers even though the one thing going in and out are packaged products. Most packages are delivered in corrugated boxes for shipping and may have been sent by a secondary packaging provider straight to a warehouse or fulfillment center.
What Is a Typical Warehouse?
The main purpose of a warehouse is to store goods for a particular amount of time, either short-term or long-term. Warehouses can provide a cost-effective method for companies to store excess material and can free up capacity for manufacturers to continue to produce more goods. Depending on the type of business and production requirements, a warehouse may allow businesses to expand versus operating with limited space thus limiting production and sales.
Warehouses are typically laid out for efficient storage with rows of stacked shelves holding organized boxes, containers, or storage bins. An automated inventory system like one that allows for scanning barcodes can help companies to have a real-time accurate count of all goods stored in the warehouse at any given moment. Storing goods on pallets and using forklifts to organize material is an efficient way of organizing products in a warehouse.
What Is a Typical Fulfillment Center?
A fulfillment center is quite different than a warehouse in that it is typically bustling with activity moving packaged goods from inventory to shipping and on to their next destination. Many fulfillment centers contain complex machinery and equipment such as programmed conveyor belts and automatic scanning equipment to route packages to the proper destination for shipping. The next time you order something from Amazon and it arrives on your doorstep the following day, it was most likely shipped from the closest fulfillment center.
E-commerce companies and subscription services may utilize the services of a fulfillment center to get their products to consumers as quickly as possible, which is the main goal of a fulfillment center. In some cases, packages may even be routed from a warehouse to a fulfillment center and then on to the end user. Businesses that sell direct to consumers through e-commerce will utilize the services of a fulfillment center to efficiently pick their products from inventory and ship them according to online sales orders.
Who Packages the Goods for Warehouses and Fulfillment Centers?
One thing that both of these types of buildings have in common, is that the main commodity is always packages. Whatever item is being stored or picked for fulfillment better be packaged properly so that it does not come apart at the seams when being moved around in a warehouse or rolling down a conveyor belt. Businesses that utilize warehouses and fulfillment centers must have a reliable packaging service to keep their products moving to meet deadlines.
Some businesses perform this packaging in-house while others have realized the benefits of outsourcing packaging to contract packaging companies.
PPS Is a Leading Contract Packaging Company
Peoria Production Solutions, PPS, is a recognized leader among contract packaging companies providing high quality packaging services for warehouses and fulfillment centers. PPS offers high-quality secondary packaging solutions such as flexible packaging, gift set packaging, variety packaging, as well as kitting and assembly. We differ from other secondary packaging providers in that our main focus is on providing jobs to our highly skilled staff of employees with alternate abilities instead of focusing on profits.
PPS is blessed with a dedicated team of highly skilled individuals who love to come to work every day and go above and beyond to meet and exceed customer expectations. We utilize modern, automated equipment in our state-of-the-art facility with the capacity to dedicate customized packaging workstations to meet specific requirements. Contact us to learn how to improve your warehouse or fulfillment center operations with cost-efficient secondary packaging solutions that meet your delivery schedules and your budget.
Palletizing products is the common method of placing boxes of parts, products, or even heavy machinery and equipment onto a skid and wrapping tightly to ship securely. Palletizing allows for trucking and shipping companies to easily maneuver large amounts of product with a forklift and provides for an efficient method of shipping large quantities of goods. Typically, corrugated boxes, even plastic totes or heavy steel machinery and equipment is set on top a skid and secured with strapping or a shrink-wrapping type of material.
Companies planning to palletize and ship large amounts of good should determine the best way to secure all goods including the right type of strapping to use. The most common types of straps used in palletizing are polyester or steel.
Which Type of Strapping Is Right for Your Palletizing Needs
Polyester Strapping
One of the most common types of strapping used to secure goods on pallets is polyester (PET) strapping. Polyester strapping is used to secure many types of products and packaging including pallets of food and beverage, metal, timber, cinderblocks, corrugated boxes, and more. Polyester strapping provides superb load containment for long periods of time with high tension and less elongation than other types of strapping.
PET strapping is almost always produced from recycled materials and provides a higher tensile strength than steel strapping. This is important for shipments that travel a long distance or encounter many stops along the way.
Steel Strapping
Steel strapping is produced from multiple layers of a steel alloy and features a high tensile strength although less than the polyester strapping. Steel strapping does, however, boast a higher break strength than all strapping materials. Steel strapping may provide the best load containment for heavier steel items such as industrial machinery and equipment or for items that have sharp corners or edges.
The rigidity of steel strapping make it a popular choice for shipping loads that do not settle at all during transportation as it will not lose its shape. The rigidity of steel strapping may not be the best choice for products such as timber that may expand and settle based on the weather and humidity level encountered during shipping. This can cause load loosening which could be very dangerous or could damage the product. When steel strapping is bent, it loses a significant amount of its strength.
It is worthwhile for companies to speak to an experienced palletizing company to choose the right type of strapping to secure their goods.
PPS Provides Experienced Palletizing Services
Peoria Production Solutions, PPS, has been providing high-quality contract packaging, kitting, assembly, and other secondary production solutions including palletizing for more than 80 years. We offer experience in palletizing a wide variety of products for secure shipping from one of our 17 shipping and receiving bays. PPS is recognized as a leading secondary production, solutions provider, helping our customers to meet assembly, packaging, and shipping needs.
PPS offers packaging and palletizing services including stretch wrapping, heat shrinking, packaging and repackaging in corrugated or chipboard containers. We provide high quality production solutions with meticulous attention to detail. Contact us to learn more about our many production solutions including quality palletizing with decades of experience.
We all know that time is money, if you are wasting time you are not creating value. The same can be said for space. Manufacturers, logistics providers, and warehouse facilities know this all too well. It can be a fine line between optimizing your capacity versus over or under utilizing your space. Companies need ample space to store inventory, both purchased raw materials and processed finished goods, room for staff to safely maneuver, and the capacity to support continued growth.
So how do you optimize your warehouse capacity? There are some basic exercises and things that companies can do to make sure they are utilizing their production and storage space to the fullest potential. Doing a thorough evaluation of your warehouse utilization, evaluating the entire floor space layout, evaluating your packaging materials, and doing some housekeeping are some basic things you can try internally. Many companies are finding that they can save money by outsourcing to a contract packaging company.
Here are some of the most effective things to do to improve warehouse utilization and increase capacity.
Evaluate Your Warehouse Space Utilization
Believe it or not, you do not want your warehouse utilization to be very high. You want to break down your total warehouse space and your available storage space into cubic feet. To calculate your available storage space, measure the size of all of your pallet and storage racks to vertical storage capacity in cubic feet. Let’s say your total available space is 2,000,000 ft.³, and your available storage space is 500,000 ft.³, that gives you a storage utilization of 25%. This is actually a pretty good number as you know that there is plenty of room for adequate aisle space and room for your employees to maneuver.
Evaluate Warehouse Layout
With more efficient operations and organized storage, you open up floor space for other, profitable, operations. Consider the layout of your entire facility and make sure that all processes from receiving, to production, packing, storage and shipping follow a lean flow of materials. Ideally, products do not cross paths. Receiving docks are on one end of the building, where vendor materials are received, recorded and properly stored. When needed, they are moved efficiently to a production or packing area, depending on the process. From there, following the same flow, products are packaged or re-packaged, labeled, and shipped, without backtracking through the flow to get there.
Clear the Clutter
Clearing the clutter is a big part of lean operations going back to the Toyota Way and six Sigma practices. It’s proven that cleared pathways and organized storage significantly improve efficient operations, and as we said before…time is money. Literally everything has its place, and everyone should know exactly where to find it. This includes everything from work instructions to materials and even cleaning supplies.
Doing regular housekeeping does a lot more than improve the appearance of your facility, the efficiencies gained translate into dollars and an improved bottom line.
Evaluate Your Packaging
Evaluate all your packaging to be sure your boxes fit your products, without using larger boxes than necessary. This extra space really adds up to affect total capacity and costs added weight and dimension, and more money with packing filler material to protect your goods.
Consider a Contract Packaging Company
Many companies are saving money today by utilizing a contract packaging company. Peoria Production Solutions, PPS, provides packaging solutions to a wide range of business sizes and industries. We have been providing secondary production solutions including professional secondary packaging services for more than 80 years. PPS offers an experienced and trained staff dedicated to a job well done and providing high-quality products with quick turnaround.
PPS is a leading Midwest provider of many production solutions including kitting, assembly, wrapping and packaging. We work with our customers to provide customized, cost-efficient solutions that improve their product and process. Contact us to learn more about how to improve your warehouse capacity with the services of an experienced contract packaging company.
