A Message From Jim Lancaster, Owner & CEO, Lantech

Sometimes the technical noise of a buying and selling process makes it is easy to lose focus of what is important from a value perspective. So, I thought I would take a moment to share a couple of the most important things that we have learned from production environments that use stretch wrap equipment. I also want to share a more detailed explanation for how a couple of Lantech’s patented features and approach to service add value for our customers.

Two things that are really important when owning a stretch wrapper:

  1. The stretch wrapper must produce a good quality load that will ship successfully and additionally produce that load at the lowest cost possible. After all, that is why a company stretch wraps in the first place.
  2. When something wears out or breaks, how fast and easy will it be to get replaced or fixed? The company you are purchasing the machine from must have the service & support system in place to ensure machines, once installed, stay running.

1. The stretch wrapper must produce a good quality load that will ship successfully.

Data and experience say there are three requirements to produce safe to ship loads:

  1. Enough containment force spread evenly over the load. Most loads fail in the middle because they are built with top and bottom bands, where the middle has very little film and/or force applied to the load. As a result, in a vibrating truck, the top half moves relative to the bottom half, or the middle moves to one side.
  2. The product is attached securely to the pallet, so it does not shift off the pallet during transit.
  3. The beginning and ending tails are not hanging down.
    Meaning the beginning tail is fully captured under subsequent layers of film and the ending tail is wiped smoothly so it adheres to the load. Otherwise, those tails can get caught in fork truck wheels, conveyor systems or AGVs.

So let me share with you couple of features that help to produce a good quality load that will ship successfully and improve overall productivity and performance.

Pallet Grip® (Available on RLA, SLA, QLA, SA & QA Automatic Stretch Wrappers)

Pallet Grip delivers a web of film with the bottom 6 inches rolled into a tight cable of film and applies it to just the right place on the pallet, which both locks the pallet to the load and keeps the cable out of the way of fork truck forks that would otherwise destroy the connection of the film to the pallet. Testing shows a dramatic improvement in shipped load performance with Pallet Grip.

Load Seeking Clamp® 4.0 (Available on SLA & SA Automatic Stretch Wrappers

The Load Seeking Clamp 4.0 (LSC 4.0), with a pneumatic bladder, practically eliminates film pulling out of the clamps. LSC 4.0’s clamp was designed to travel to the side of the load. By taking the leading tail to the side of the load, the leading tail is fully captured within the wrapped load. As a result, the film does not risk tearing as it passes over the clamps, and the containment force is maintained at the bottom of the load.

Having a Load Seeking Clamp is critical to eliminating the beginning film tail and ensuring proper Containment Force on the Pallet!

An additional benefit of this design is that the entire automation unit assembly mounts up off the floor on the conveyor making clean-up and walk paths much simpler.

The combination of these features and over 50 years of experience baked into the design of our stretch wrappers provides improved productivity and performance while delivering safe-to-ship loads at a lower cost.

2. The company you are purchasing the machine from has the service & support system in place to ensure machines, once installed, stay running.

Bill Lancaster (left) and Pat Lancaster (right) founded Lantech in 1972.

I know it sounds old-fashioned, but 53 years after my father and uncle founded Lantech and the global stretch wrap industry, I still meet with new employees weekly to impart the values that have kept Lantech the dominant market leader for all these years. Lantech has been owned and led by the Lancaster family for all of those 53 years. With the third generation now involved in the business, we remain committed to the values that we believe have kept customers coming back throughout our long history.

During new employee orientation, I share the story of my father and uncle, who, despite having few resources, possessed incredible drive and passion. They refused to leave a customer’s factory until the equipment they built—sometimes right there on the customer’s facility floor—was working to the customer’s expectations. In the early years, this sometimes took a while, as the technology was new and the equipment design was rudimentary. That absolute dedication to ensuring machines, once installed, stayed running has been one of the biggest reasons customers return to us time and time again.

Lantech’s aftermarket group is focused on promptly answering calls, with friendly experts ready to help get any problems resolved quickly. Our parts team ships 85% to 95% of orders on the same day they are placed. And our highly trained service technicians are ready to assist if a machine goes down. We take care of every machine we have sold to the maximum extent possible. Every machine, back to the early 1970s, still lives with a machine specific documentation file. I tell new employees that even today, 53 years after our founding, our number one daily priority is supporting customers in down situations. Our 24/7 service team is authorized to get whatever they need, any time day or night, from anywhere in our facility to get a machine back up and running for a customer.

We are not perfect, but as a family-owned business, with long tenured loyal associates, our pride is in every machine we ship and in how we care for every customer after they take delivery. When you buy Lantech, you will always have people who care and who know more about wrapping pallets than anyone else in the world, ready to support you.