So you’ve shopped around for stretch wrappers and you’re at the point in your purchasing journey where you need real numbers to go any farther. You know you need to request a quote, and you probably have a nebulous idea of the specifications or options you are looking for, but what do you need to know to get a good quote and what’s going to make the biggest impact on your budget?
Critical information!
Let’s start with the very basic info you should know before you pick up the phone or fill out a form to request a quote.
What info do you need to provide to get a quote for the right machine?
- Pallet info: Length, width, height, and type
- Product Info: Stable or unstable (e.g. heavy square boxes, PET water bottles, or paper towels)
- Speed: Maximum throughput required per hour
- Substrate: Pallet, slip sheet, or no substrate
- Conveyors: Quantity & length of conveyors
- Loading and unloading locations
- Electrical information: voltage, phase, and frequency.
If you can provide specifications for these 7 criteria, you can be confident that you are budgeting for the right type of machine.
But the more information the better! Don’t hesitate to provide any other facts that are available.
Quote mistakes to avoid
First off, don’t guess! If you aren’t sure of a specification, how to find it or even what it means, it can be tempting to just guess. You might think that it’s better to have something in the field to get a ballpark figure and that you’ll correct it later. Don’t. You’ll forget you guessed, and if the guess was wrong it could result in a significant error in the machine specs.
If you aren’t sure, call for help or omit it. It’s better to omit a detail than to guess.
Another budgeting mistake that could end up costing you big is assuming that your custom spec isn’t going to be that big of a deal. Custom specifications can add an additional $30K or more to the cost of the machine, so provide as much info as you can as soon as you get it!
The costliest mistake of all
If you make a mistake on your specifications, order a machine, and discover that mistake after you’ve already gotten the machine you’re looking at either costly replacement/alteration, lost productivity, or worst of all an unusable machine.
That may seem a bit overblown, but we’ve seen it happen. Things like pallet configuration and conveyor specs (quantity, length, roller spacing, pass height, and loading positions) can drastically change the type of machine or model that is ideal or even functional for your application.
Certain options like corner boards, top sheet dispensers, and tab folding for slip sheets can require an entirely different machine altogether, or be very costly to add to the machine you originally asked for a budgetary quote on.
Why is all of this so important? Ultimately, it’s about getting it right – the budget and the machine.
Check out these other posts on buying a automatic stretch wrapper:
- 5 Things People Forget When Buying a Semi-Automatic Stretch Wrapper
- Should I Buy a Semi-automatic or an Automatic Stretch Wrapper?
This post was published on October 13, 2016 and updated on September 13, 2017.
October 13, 2016
