CASE STUDY NO. 9701
KEY WORDS PALLETIZATION, WAREHOUSING, REUSABLE WRAPPING, RUBBER BANDS
Traex / Menasha Corporation
Traex Plaza
P.O. Box 200
Dane, WI 53529-0200
Contact: Lee T. Luft, General Manager. Tel: 608-849-2527. Fax: 608-849-2580.
Summary
Rubber pallet bands replace shrink wrap for securing skid-loads in warehouse operations, yielding annual savings of $49,706 from reduced labor and materials.
Action
Traex manufactures injection molded plastics and other products for the food service industry.
Finished products are boxed in corrugated containers and stored on pallets in the warehouse until needed to fill orders. Previously the company stretch-wrapped the pallet-loads by hand for transfer to the warehouse. The wrapping process was time-consuming and required most of one employee's attention over three shifts. The process also exposed workers to the risk of back injury from stooping and straining.
Traex began to study a change in this method of warehousing on pallets when its waste hauler announced a new requirement: old stretch-wrap removed from pallets during the order-filling process henceforth would have to be baled for disposal.
Beginning in April 1995, Traex began testing rubber pallet bands to secure loads. (Aero Pallet Bands, 7501 W. 99th Place, Bridgeview, IL 60455. 800-662-1009, 708-430-4900. Fax: 708-430-4909.) Unstretched bands measure 3/4" wide by 92" in circumference, the proper size for use with 40" x 48" pallets. Typically, two bands are used per skid, one looping around the top layer of boxes and the other about mid-load. Bands are applied by hand, an operation that takes one worker about 10 seconds per band. (By comparison, stretch-wrapping required about 1 minute per skid.) When skids are brought from the warehouse to fill orders, the bands are quickly removed and tossed in a container for reuse. From pallet-loading at the production line, to warehouse, to pallet-unloading, bands make the roundtrip in about six weeks.
With training provided by the warehouse manager, this change in operations was adopted easily. Employees like the rubber bands better than shrink-wrap. After 10 months under test, only four bands broke. There is no risk from snapping bands.
Payback
The most important saving is reduced labor cost. Traex calculates that it recovered the cost of its initial supply of rubber bands in just four 3-shift production days. Here is the company's summary of overall annual savings:
NET SAVING $49,706
Other benefits
Reduced demand for stretch wrap has freed some storage space, and additional labor
has been saved by avoiding baling of stretch-wrap. Occasional use of temporary workers for
unwrapping stretch-wrap has ended, as have occasional injuries to workers from using a
knife to cut away stretch-wrap.