There are lots of reasons to choose shrink wrapping over cardboard boxes, suggests Yorkshire Packaging Systems in this article which also dwells on the importance of service and support
SHRINK wrapping is much more cost effective than cardboard cartons, usually saving between 50-75% on material alone and has proven to be much more efficient as the equipment has the ability to collate products automatically with the added bonus that there is no box to erect.
Shrink wrapping saves space within the warehouse and distribution environment as one pallet of shrink film can package the equivalent of 15 pallets of cardboard. As you might expect, this reduction in material requirement is also considered to be more environmentally friendly as less packaging is used and what is used is 100% recyclable.
Yorkshire Packaging Systems is a supplier of shrink wrapping machinery and films and we have found that the importance of service and support within the industry and the availability of UK held spare parts is often overlooked.
MACHINES ARE GETTING FASTER
As technology continues to improve, machines are increasingly becoming faster and faster. At YPS we are able to supply a wide variety of high speed side sealers designed to work with high clarity polyolefin shrink films. One of the mid-range machines that YPS can supply has the ability to wrap up to 130 packs per minute and we have found that fast response service and support is business critical and will continue to become more and more of a priority as technology continues to improve and faster machine speeds are required.
REDUCING DOWNTIME
When using machines such as these, reducing downtime is crucial. For every minute that the equipment is down there are 130 packs per minute missing from production. Just ten years ago, half of this speed would have been at the top end of the market however faster machine speeds have meant that the industry has become more reliant on the output speed. This means that service and support is and continues to be the most important element for YPS when supplying shrink wrapping machinery. The industry requires trustworthy, improved speed, reliable machinery coupled with first class back up and support which YPS make a priority.
The high speed side sealers which YPS supply are coupled with energy efficient shrink tunnels with infrared technology which reduces the power requirements needed for the machinery. In keeping with this, YPS also supplies high clarity, low shrink temperature shrink films from Bollore in order to keep the carbon footprint of the machinery at a minimum, yet another advantage of using YPS shrink wrappers over cardboard boxes for packaging.
BIODEGRADEABLE FILM
YPS also supplies a biodegradable shrink film (BYO) which has been developed by Bollore. This film shrinks at the highest free shrink ratio of any film on the market for improved presentation and also seals and shrinks much faster and at considerably lower temperatures than any film currently available. This in itself has considerable environmental benefits.
Many thousands of tonnes of polyolefin shrink film ends up in landfill every year. The BYO film will dis-integrate into components which are ‘bio-assimilated’ by soil micro-organisms ensuring that the film will completely disappear in under three years compared to over three hundred years for conventional polyolefin shrink films.
Importantly, BYO is also fully recyclable as many polyolefin shrink films currently are and so this important avenue is not lost through the use of BYO. However statistics show the vast majority of polyolefin shrink produced today still ends up in landfill and so BYO is the first polyolefin material in the world to address this issue.
The BYO film has been designed to cope with the ever more exacting demands of high speed applications which are continuing to get faster as technology advances.
• More information available at www.yps.co.uk.
