UK businesses get through around 150,000 tonnes of stretch wrap a year. A great deal of it is machine stretch film, running through a pallet wrapper that a different company supplied.
That split is so normal that nobody questions it. The wrapper came from a machinery company. The film comes from a packaging supplier. Both are doing their job properly. Neither one is responsible for what happens where they meet.
Two suppliers, one process
When a pallet wrapper is commissioned it is set up and signed off against a specific film. Wrap force, pre-stretch, carriage speed, the number of top and bottom wraps, all of it tuned to that specification.
Then time passes. The film gets re-tendered and a different grade or micron comes in. The pallet configuration changes. Product weight goes up. The machine settings stay exactly where the engineer left them.
Nothing fails on the day. The machine still runs and the pallets still go out. The problem turns up somewhere else.
What it looks like when nobody owns the join
- Film that does not hold the load
- Damage in transit, and the claims behind it
- Too much film used, and money down the drain
None of these gets logged as a packaging problem. Transit damage sits with logistics. Over-consumption sits with procurement. Downtime sits with engineering. The cause sits in between, which is why it can run for years before anyone picks it up.
There is a sustainability cost in there too. Every metre of film used beyond what the load actually needs is plastic bought, plastic taxed and plastic disposed of for no benefit.
It is not only pallet wrappers
The same gap opens up anywhere a machine meets a consumable.
A case erector is set up around a particular tape: its width, its adhesion, how it behaves at speed. Change the tape and the machine has no way of knowing.
A bagger is specified around a film of a given thickness and seal temperature. Change the film and the seals change with it.
In every case the equipment was optimised once, against a consumable that may no longer be the one going through it.
Five questions about your wrapper and your machine stretch film
If you run a pallet wrapper and you are not certain it has ever been looked at alongside the film, start here.
- What micron is your wrapper set up for, and what micron is running on it today?
- How much film goes onto each pallet, and what does that cost you per pallet?
- What pre-stretch is the machine set to, and what is your film rated for?
- How often do pallets arrive with the load shifted or the film split?
- Since the product or the pallet last changed, has anyone re-set the machine?
If those are easy to answer, you are in good shape. If they are not, that is no criticism of anyone. It usually means the question has never been anybody’s to answer.
How we look at it
At Titan we audit the machine and the film together, in the same visit. We score load stability on a live pallet, check the micron and pre-stretch running against what the film is rated for, and work out how much film goes onto each pallet and what each wrapped pallet costs.
The aim is the most stable pallet, with the least film on it, at the lowest cost per pallet.
Because we supply the machinery and the consumables, the join is ours. If the film is wrong for the machine, we change the film. If the machine is set up wrong for the film, we change the settings. There is no second supplier to go back to.
The same applies across the rest of the line. Case erectors and tape, baggers and film, void fill and paper. The equipment and the thing running through it should be specified together, and reviewed together whenever either one changes.
Worth a look?
Our stretch wrap audits are free of charge. If nobody has reviewed your machine and your film in the same visit, that is usually where the easiest savings are sitting.
Get in touch with Titan today to see how we can help.