Stretch film secures products and packages to pallets in ways that help companies reduce shipping losses due to damaged products.
But when loads fail, and there are damaged products to deal with, the impact isn’t just felt on the receiving end. The entire supply chain is affected.
First, imagine a manufacturer that sends less-than-truckload (LTL) shipments on a regular basis. If their pallets arrive damaged and unusable, it may not amount to a giant dollar amount in terms of shipping damage, at least to the receiver, but chances are the shipment was a crucial link between the shipper and the customer.
This could put the relationship at risk, which could result in lost customers and revenue for the shipper. Not to mention, the receiver’s sales can be hurt as their own customers are not able to buy the products, and may go elsewhere for them.
For the small supplier, the “butterfly effect” of an incorrect containment force calculation can contribute to damaged products and shipping losses that end up eating into any profits they may have made from that customer. The small supplier leans more heavily on every shipment arriving safely and successfully. Their brand image is heavily reliant upon the shipping company, but it really rests on (and inside) their stretch wrapper and stretch film.
On the other end of the spectrum, consider a huge canned beverage manufacturer. The plant is an enormous, automated facility that brings products in “just in time,” including can lids from a supplier who ships 250,000 aluminum lids on a single pallet.
If the truck arrives with a quarter-million aluminum lids spread all over the trailer, it could delay their processes, and it will certainly cost them in time and labor to clean up. Some of the product components for huge automated assembly lines must not only arrive undamaged, but the plant is counting on them to be stacked and packaged perfectly, so they can immediately be placed into production. A broken pallet of lids is completely lost and unusable, and spells lost time and revenue for both the supplier and the receiver.
In both examples, brand image and reputation are at stake. When a small supplier experiences shipping damage, they cannot easily make up for it with the customer. And when a large company loses time because of shipping damage, the delays can be in the tens of thousands of dollars.
The butterfly effect of achieving proper containment force on a pallet load has a bigger impact than most people realize. It not only affects the people who have to clean up the mess, but the ripples can be felt on the bottom lines of both companies and beyond.
For more information on reducing shipping damages, or to learn more about how Lantech works to eliminate shipping damage, you contact us on our website or call us at (502) 815-9109.
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This post was published on May 15, 2013 and updated on July 20, 2015.
May 15, 2013
