Shipping bad loads, loads that don’t meet current stretch wrapping standards, has become an out-of-control costly problem that many consider just a cost of doing business. Recent studies show that companies incur $7.2B in product damage annually. This impacts everyone in manufacturing and up and down the supply chain. What if it didn’t have to be that way? The good news it doesn’t.

Today, new stretch wrapping technologies help reduce primary packaging and product damage in the over two-and-a-half billion pallets shipped each year in the United States alone to ensure you are shipping good loads.

So, you may be asking…” What is a bad load?”

In short, it’s when your pallet loads are not shipped to your approved internal standards based on best practices. Internal standards are important as they allow you to establish a baseline quality check to understand why you may be having issues with product damage and how to quickly pivot to solve the issue. We recommend a quality check once per shift.

Best practices you should implement are:

  1. Apply the right amount of containment force everywhere on the load
  2. The load should always be locked to the pallet. Full web film roping is the best way to lock the load to the pallet
  3. Make sure there are no dragging film tails. Film tails get caught on forks and other items during the shipping process. The film tail is easily pulled compromising containment at that area of the pallet which leads to load failure causing damage.

Setting standards that follow best practices will lead to a reduction in primary packaging and product damage. Also, consider choosing a stretch wrapper with Cube Technology which is proven to reduce product damage by 40% while reducing film costs 30 to 55%. It’s the best stretch wrapping technology for shipping good loads with the shortest payback!