3 Ways to Profit From Your Holiday Slowdown

While some companies are swamped during the holidays, other companies’ busy season happens in the spring or summer. In fact, the winter is their slow time, as production drops off and people take vacation. Here are three things you can do to take advantage of your seasonal slowdown.

Catch up on maintenance

We recommend you do this right before the busy season starts up, but any time you can perform maintenance on your stretch wrapper is a good time. Grease up the necessary moving parts. Clean up the control panel and photo eyes. If you’ve been putting off small repairs for a slow period, now is the time to do it.

“Spring Clean” the stretch wrapping area

There may be a cleaning staff who keeps the floor clean, but now is the time to clean up the entire area — organize the rolls of stretch wrap and take inventory. Discard old materials that haven’t been used in a while and show no signs of being used again. Clean all the places that aren’t typically reached by the cleaning staff. It’s an old saying in restaurant kitchens that a cluttered workplace means a cluttered mind. Avoid the clutter and work more efficiently by keeping your own place as clean as possible. In Lean Manufacturing, we use the 5S method of workplace organization: Sort, Straighten, Shine, Standardize and Sustain.

Train new staff on other machines

One of the problems you’re going to have during the busy season are staff shortages, with vacations and illnesses. One of the things you can do is to cross-train some employees on machines like the stretch wrapper. Have them go through training and work on the stretch wrapper during the slower times to make sure they know how to use the machines properly. The slow time lets you work the machines slowly and thoroughly, so your employees can get up to speed on how everything works. Then, if you ever need a sub during the busy time, you’ve got someone on-site already.

Looking for other ways to improve? Check out our 10-Step Process for Damage Reduction Through More Effective Stretch Wrapping. Our process will show you:

• How to reduce your shipping damage by 50%!
• The key elements of a stretch wrapping standard!
• How to manage containment force – stretch wrapping’s most critical component!

For more information, you can contact us on our website or call us at (502) 815-9109.