How tight should you wrap your pallet loads?

Containment Force can mean the difference between a load that is safe to ship and a disaster waiting to happen.

Setting the stretch wrapper so that the containment force is appropriate without wasting film is the goal of cost-efficient shipping. But for a particular load, finding the ideal containment force can take some time.

But with so many different products and materials shipping in the frenzy of today’s diverse industries, how is the best containment force determined for a particular load? 

In general, the “golden rule” of containment force is simple: Use what works.

To find out what works, create a testing process based on actual shipments or real experience using a PDCA (Plan, Do, Check, Adjust) loop. Your process should include wrapping pallet loads, measuring the containment force, shipping the loads, evaluating the results, taking correct action if needed, and trying again.

While there is no magic formula for the “ideal” containment force, we have produced Lantech’s Containment Force Recommendations. It’s a simple tool that users may refer to as a general guide based upon many years of Lantech’s recorded field observations. They provide guidelines you can compare to your test results and are great place to start if you don’t have testing of actual shipments.

“To measure is to know!” is one of our favorite quotes from William Thomson, Lord Kelvin. Thomson was a famous 19th Century, British mathematician and physicist who developed the Kelvin scale of temperature measurement. So now we can all know exactly how hot or cold we are. You can know your containment force by measuring it with the CFT-6 Containment Force Tool. See a video on How to Measure Containment Force with CFT-6 Tool.

For more information on containment force, or to learn more about how Lantech can help with your stretch wrapping needs, you can contact us on our website or call us at (502) 815-9109.

Click here to see related blog: How Stretch Wrapping HELPS The Environment.