Today most manufacturers and 3PLs ship a variety of products in different sizes and shapes—sometimes hundreds of SKUs. Automating to right-size your packaging can reduce your labor, materials, shipping costs, and time as well as save valuable warehouse space.
In the old days, when you mainly worried about weight, boxes were often 40 to 50% oversized, with void fill taking up the remaining space. When you ship your products today, you are charged based on the package’s dim weight (the amount of space a package occupies in relation to its actual weight). Given the rise in transportation costs and you and your customers’ concerns about greenhouse gas emissions, it’s vital that you ship as much right-sized product per each truckload as possible.
In this market, it’s much harder to find workers willing to do repetitive jobs like making and packing boxes. You also don’t want piles of different-sized boxes cluttering up your warehouse when that space could be devoted to product.
Automation is the answer to right-sizing your package:
- Premier offers machinery that scans each product, and right-sizes in three dimensions a box or poly bag that fits around the product. If a different-sized product follows, the machinery scans that size and adjusts the box or poly bag accordingly. As a result, you have packaging that protects the product while minimizing both packaging and void fill. These machines also weigh the package with the product inside and apply a shipping label.
- There is no employee interaction with this machinery after introducing the product. You can repurpose your other employees or, in a tight labor market, get by with less people.
- In addition to saving money on labor, the process is more efficient, increasing throughput speed while producing consistently packaged products every time.
- Right-sizing also reduces your material costs. According to industry experts, if each dimension of a box was reduced by 20%, 34% less corrugated would be required and the cube size of the box would be 49% smaller.
- Right-sized packaging will also appeal to your sustainability-minded customers who are put off by excessive packaging.
If you would like to find out more about how automation can right-size your packaging and save you money, contact us.