Lantech Blog

Several national packaging distributors are about to raise the curtain on new state-of-the-art research and load-testing facilities around the United States.

Lantech CEO Jim Lancaster, author of the new Lean Enterprise Institute book "The Work of Management", explains on the latest Lean Blog podcast why and how he revitalized improvement tactics and strategy.

Did you know that tissues, diaper, and other paper-based industries suffer about 230 million dollars in product damage during the shipping process globally? About 70 million dollars of that loss happens in the North American markets alone.

Is There a Problem?

There seems to be a widely held belief that the ASTM has endorsed a particular method and particular tool to measure the containment force of stretch wrapped pallet loads. Believers often cite ASTM D4649 Standard Guide for Selection and Use of Stretch Wrap Films as the authority for this contention, particularly its Annex A1.

This is a guest post from Ed Marsh of Consilium Global Business Advisors.

Trucks move America

Trucks carry most of the tonnage and value of freight in the United States....In 2011 nearly 14,530 miles of the NHS carry more than 8,500 trucks per day on sections where at least every fourth vehicle was a truck.  With each truck carrying an average of 16 tons of cargo, 8,500 trucks per day haul approximately 50 million tons per year. US Bureau of Transportation Statistics

Trucks are fundamental to American commerce and consumerism. Even the vast quantities of product moved by barge and rail are ultimately delivered to the point of sale or use by trucks.

Easy....but not simple

"It's not complicated. I just need a stretch wrapper for regular pallets."

The biggest cost driver in stretch wrapping is in-transit damage incurred by loads that were stretch wrapped ineffectively. One of the best ways to stretch wrap well is with a stretch wrapping machine. In fact, we’ve talked about some of the problems with hand wrapping pallets before, and often the biggest issue with hand wrapping is that machines are just better at wrapping loads than people are.

In the absence of strict wrap standards and regular testing, stretch wrapping can seem more like an art than a science. The items need to be stacked correctly and the pallet needs to be wrapped to contain the items, preventing damage while keeping the continuity of the pallet during shipping.

Here at Lantech we have a broad stretch wrapper product line and decades of experience, so we believe there are very few limits to what a stretch wrapper can do. Our philosophy is if we can get it to the wrap zone then we can wrap it. That being said there are times where special considerations do apply.