Global Logistics and Supply Chain Strategies - March 2008 - (Page 47)

Ampuja cites an example of an SCO customer that makes ice cream sandwiches. “When the company double-stacked its pallets in the truck, everything on the bottom got crushed,” he says. The problem was that its boxes were not designed to be stacked, says Ampuja. “Once again, this was a case where the purchasing guy had reduced the strength of the box when told to cut costs. And, much to the CEO’s chagrin, he got a bonus for that,” Ampuja says. In this case, as in many others, Ampuja’s team was able to increase the strength of the box while also reducing materials costs. “If you size the box down to fit the product tightly all the way around, you save money and get a better box out of the deal,” he says. “A smaller box is typically cheaper and stronger.” But there are other factors that also must be taken into consideration. For example, says Ampuja, the pattern in which boxes are stacked on a pallet impacts carton strength. “An interlocked pattern gives better stability but 40 percent less compression strength than column stacking,” he notes. “And just a one-inch misalignment of box corners reduces compression strength by 43 percent.” Carton strength also is impacted by such factors as the length of time it is in storage and environmental humidity, he says. Being able to stack cartons and pallets in a trailer or container is important for optimal cube utilization, says Robert Kelly, packaging engineer at the Jay Group, Chicago. The Jay Group’s fulfillment division provides contract packaging and package design as part of its service offering. To employ stacking it sometimes is necessary to increase the structural strength of the box and that can require “some interesting economic equations,” says Kelly. “You have to compare how much additional money is needed to beef up the box versus the savings you would get by filling that extra head space in a trailer.” With today’s trend in oil prices, the added materials cost usually is less than the transportation savings, he says. “As a package engineer, we routinely try to look at the total system costs for producing and shipping that package.” This gets more complicated when the supply chain is global, says Paul Sandhu, executive director of PMC Corp., Dearborn, Mich. “Many manufacturers serve international as well as domestic markets and they don’t want to input two different types of packaging styles into their operation,” he says. “So you have to work on finding an optimum solution that will satisfy both markets while minimizing costs.” Think Inside the Box Compressing box sizes sometimes can be achieved by changing supporting materials inside the box. Xpedx worked with Hewlett-Packard to redesign packaging for two of its desktop computer towers. Foam accessories used inside the box were reengineered to provide more stability in a smaller footprint, making it possible to shrink the size of the box without altering the design of the product. The result was a smaller package, less material used and lower freight costs, says Matthews. Craters & Freighters, Denver, often helps companies redesign their packaging to use less internal material, says CEO Diane Gibson. C&F provides packaging, crating and GLOBAL LOGISTICS & SUPPLY CHAIN STRATEGIES 47 http://CratersAndFreighters.com http://CratersAndFreighters.com

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Global Logistics and Supply Chain Strategies - March 2008 Editorial GL & SCS Exclusive FastForward Up Front The Green in Green Think Inside the Box Have a Second Look Can't Happen Here Opinion: Stay in the Black as Your Workforce Fades to Gray Opinion: Four Critical Steps to Managing Change in the Supply Chain Industry Voices

Global Logistics and Supply Chain Strategies - March 2008

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