{"id":64781,"date":"2020-10-13T12:49:17","date_gmt":"2020-10-13T16:49:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lantechweb.wpengine.com\/blog\/the-hidden-costs-of-hand-wrapping-pallets\/"},"modified":"2020-10-13T12:49:17","modified_gmt":"2020-10-13T16:49:17","slug":"the-hidden-costs-of-hand-wrapping-pallets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lantech.com\/r2\/blog\/the-hidden-costs-of-hand-wrapping-pallets\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hidden Costs of Hand Wrapping Pallets"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

As early as the 1970s, a large segment of American industry realized the benefits of pallet unitization. By making one big pallet load out of many smaller goods productivity dramatically improved and the chances for shipping damage were reduced. It didn\u2019t take long for unitizing loads of goods on pallets with stretch wrapping to become the most widely used material handling method for shipping products.<\/p>\n

The Era of Shrink Bags<\/h2>\n\"\"Some of the earliest pallet unitization efforts were accomplished with ovens heating a hood of film placed over the load, with the heat then shrinking the film to secure the load.<\/p>\n

However, the energy crisis during the 1970s led to increasing energy costs and, as a result, increased costs for shrink bagging loads. This rise in costs had people looking for a more cost effective way to accomplish the same damage reducing benefits of load unitization without the prohibitive cost of shrink bags.\u00a0<\/span>\n

Stretch Wrapping to the Rescue<\/span><\/p>\n

That is where stretch wrapping came in. In the 1970’s Pat and Bill Lancaster invented stretch wrapping<\/a> as we know it with the goal of eliminating these energy issues and the quality issues associated with hand wrapping<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Today, stretch wrapping has become dominant method of unitizing pallet loads for shipment. It’s fast, efficient, inexpensive, and remarkably effective\u00a0when done\u00a0properly. Since Pat and Bill’s first machine, a variety for types and models of stretch wrappers have evolved to meet virtually any stretch wrapping requirement – large or small – or to fit any application.<\/p>\n

Hidden Costs<\/h2>\n

An off-shoot of stretch wrapping with a machine was stretch wrapping by hand. This involves a person walking around a pallet load while wrapping it with a hand-held roll of stretch film. Although this method is still in use today, it is inefficient in several ways.<\/p>\n

One of the downsides of hand wrapping<\/a> is that\u00a0any time you have a human doing a redundant type of job like pallet wrapping, there is a possibility for injury<\/a>. Not only does an injury disrupt the process, but it also results in down time for the employee and the added costs for medical care, workers compensation and the like. Plus, if the injury is debilitating enough, a new employee must be hired and trained, which takes even more time and money.<\/p>\n

Further, \u00a0hand wrapping typically uses more stretch film that a machine. Many stretch wrapping machines pre-stretch the film up to 200 percent or more. Two hundred percent pre-stretch, for example, turns 1 foot of film in to 3 feet of film, dramatically reducing film consumption and cost.<\/p>\n

The biggest problem with hand wrapping, however, is inconsistency. Operators just aren\u2019t as consistent at wrapping loads as machines. Sure, operators have the potential to wrap several, good loads in a row, but it\u2019s hard to do it well each and every time.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Stretch Wrapping with a machine is the Answer<\/h2>\n

In virtually every scenario, you can avoid the hidden costs of manual pallet wrapping by going to machine stretch wrapping. You’ll save money by reducing your film usage, you’ll have less worry about employee injuries than if they were wrapping a pallet by hand, and machine stretch wrapped loads are more likely to be pallet bonded<\/a> than a load wrapped by hand.<\/p>\n

That’s why\u00a0stretch wrapping is the answer<\/a>\u00a0every time you wrap up and ship out a pallet.<\/p>\n

You may be interested\u00a0in these other posts on stretch wrapping:<\/h2>\n