How can I get the containment I need without crushing the boxes that go on my customer's shelves?
Thanks for your question. This subject applies to a lot of companies who palletize product packaged in folding cartons or thin gauge plastic bottles (or anything easily crushed). It is particularly critical if the product is being shipped to a club store, as I know yours is! Consumers avoid buying a box of, say laundry detergent, that has a crushed corner. I must admit, I am guilty of that myself. While a crushed corner doesn’t affect the function of the product itself, the fact that we take a pass on items with damaged packaging confirms that cosmetics, at the point of purchase, can be as important as the product itself.
It is common to equate load containment with force-to-load, or the amount of force the film directly applies to the load. While this is certainly one component of overall load containment, it is not the ONLY one. Next is what we call “secondary stretch” (continued stretch after it has been applied). For an application involving products that are easily crushed, secondary stretch is probably THE most important consideration. Let’s distinguish between the two. When you grip an object and squeeze, you are applying force-to-load to the object and that doesn’t change even if you pick it up and shake it (because your hand does not stretch). However, if you place a rubber band around an object it too will apply a force to the object, but we know that rubber band can still be stretched further. The same applies to stretch film once it has been applied. If it has not reached its limit of elasticity, it can be stretched further by the normal forces experienced during transportation. And with any secondary stretch, load containment is diminished, often leading to load failure.
With all this in mind, we now know that to maximize load containment without crushing the product we need to take the elasticity out of the film. This can be done by increasing pre-stretch, then applying the film to the load with just enough tension that the load is secured, but not so much as to deform the product. Because we have reached the film’s limit of elasticity, there is little to no secondary stretch left and load containment is far better, even with minimal force-to-load. It works, we have proven this time and time again in our Containment Lab and in the field.
So why is this such a challenge for most? The answer is simple: when you reach the limit of elasticity of conventional stretch film it breaks. Worse, it breaks as the pallet is being wrapped, which dramatically impacts production. So, traditionally, the solution has been to just apply a lot more film at lower pre-stretch and tension. Each wrap clings to the one before increasing the effective thickness of the film and thus increasing its resistance to stretch.
While that method might work in some applications, it’s not the ideal solution because it increases packaging material costs, takes longer to wrap, and still doesn’t guarantee optimal load containment.
So, how do you prevent crushing the product, increase load containment, reduce film usage, decrease cost per pallet, increase plant throughput, and help reach your company’s sustainability goals? You guessed it, we do it by understanding and applying the science of stretch wrap and load containment, so it becomes one less thing that you have to worry about!
By incorporating our patented reinforcement bands or filaments into a full web of our Rapid Film, we can achieve maximum stretch and stiffness by drastically reducing the film’s elasticity. Simply put, we can achieve much higher levels of pre-stretch without the web breaking during wrapping and without using more film. Because virtually no stretch remains in the film, it can be applied to the load using low
to moderate tension preventing the product from being crushed while maintaining its load containment properties, even when exposed to the forces experienced during shipping.
Thanks for asking!