Pallet Wrappers: Making Shipping Better, Simpler, Cheaper and Faster
You can have it all by making sure the pallet wrapper you buy has one important feature – an integrated scale. People often overlook this feature because they think of pallet wrapping and weighing as two separate tasks. A machine that multitasks by performing both at one time saves labor, time and money.
Pallet wrapping and weighing separately means handling each load twice, and that can add anywhere from 30 seconds to a minute-and-a-half to the processing time for each one. To see exactly what that looks like, click here.
Save Time and Money
A company paying their operators $12/hour and stretch wrapping 50 pallets per day could save anywhere from $6,250 to $18,750 over the first five years – just in labor costs.
Accurate weight means no estimating, so you can calculate correct freight costs and only pay what you actually owe. Reweighing fees add up to $1 billion annually, and each fine can cost you anywhere from $10 to $15. Integrated scales can also be connected to computers and printers for easy and secure data collection and labels. In fact, operators can now use a smartphone app to send and receive scale data via a wireless module.
Quality Control – Make Sure You’re Actually Shipping What You Think You Are
The integrated scale makes it easy and automatic to weigh every load you ship, and in doing so, it becomes the final step in quality control. You can check the pick list weight against the scale’s measurement and flag any differences from load to load. What’s more, accurate weight records can also provide a layer of security by confirming that pallet loads arrived intact and with nothing missing.
A Real World Situation
For an intriguing example, check out this blog post, The Case of the Missing Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon. The investigation that led to that national news story began when weighing as a final quality control method uncovered that three cases of the legendary liquor – valued at $26,000 – had been stolen from the center of the load.
What should be no mystery by now, however, is that weighing every load can save you significant time, money and uncertainty. Integrating a scale into your pallet wrapper is simply the easiest way to make that happen and should be the one important feature you don’t overlook when you consider which stretch wrapper is right for you.
This post was published on July 17, 2015 and updated on July 17, 2015.
July 17, 2015
