Logan Voss
Do you meticulously hand wrap your pallets? Many smaller businesses continue to rely on manual labor to wrap products for shipment. Although hand wrapping gets the job done, it doesn’t get it done very well. You might be surprised to learn that hand wrapping could be costing your business time, money, and even customer loyalty. Here are some reasons you should stop hand wrapping pallets and transition your business to automated wrapping with stretch wrappers.
Costs More, Produces Less
If you’re wrapping over 50 pallets a week, transitioning from manual to automated wrapping can save you a lot of time and money. Hand wrapping results in higher-than-normal film costs. Since your employees can’t pre-stretch film like machines can, you’ll end up getting less out of each film roll.
Hand wrapping also results in lower production rates. Humans aren’t nearly as fast as machines, even when they’ve had a lot of practice wrapping pallets by hand. On average, it takes workers four minutes to wrap a single pallet. That’s only 15 pallets an hour. Machines, on the other hand, can wrap up to 250 pallets an hour! That’s a huge improvement.
Inconsistency
The next reason you should stop hand wrapping pallets is that humans don’t wrap consistently. Even if you have strict hand wrapping standards in place, each employee will wrap pallets in their own unique way. And even the same worker can end up wrapping pallets differently each time. The result? You’ll wind up with some pallets that are wrapped perfectly and a few that could use minor adjustments. You may even have some that are sure to fall apart in shipment.
Machines wrap consistently every time, which means you won’t have to worry about the quality of the wrap and you can ship your pallets without fearing freight damage. And the less often your products arrive damaged (or don’t arrive at all), the happier your customers and clients will be.
Poor Ergonomics
Hand wrapping can be strenuous and dangerous for your workers. Wrapping film around a pallet might seem like a simple task, but it requires a surprising amount of physical effort to wrap pallets with the correct amount of containment force.
Over time, this intense physical exertion can result in ergonomic injuries such as arm, leg, and back pain or more severe medical problems such as nerve injuries and heart attacks. By switching to machines, you can keep your employees safe. You can also decrease turnover rates, raise retention rates, and protect your business against expensive compensation claims.
Interested in automating the stretch wrap process? The process of picking out a new machine might seem complicated, but it doesn’t need to be. Talk with different manufacturers, carefully weigh your options, and pick the machine that’s best suited to your business’s needs.
