Sturdy, Stackable Material Packaging
S Lester received a request from a company, primarily in the oil industry, to help them replace their current packaging for shipping fibre-based on-roll materials. They were, at the time, using a full timber pallet shipping solution, suspending the material during transit to keep it undamaged.
In order to better understand the challenge before them, the S Lester team visited the client site to discuss the ins and outs of the current packaging with the operators most familiar with it. During the visit, it was established that the current pack was frustrating to assemble, involving sawing and drilling each individual shipper.
The product itself, a single roll, wasn’t heavy; however, a full shipper would contain 20 rolls, weighing a considerable amount. These 20 rolls were also, in the current packaging, unable to be double stacked, leaving a large amount of unused space in the shipping process. S Lester’s objectives were therefore clear: to create a sturdy, easy-to-assemble product, that could be double stacked, that would be simple to load up for shipping, and that would be easy to decant and dispose of at the final destination.
The S Lester team discussed the requirements of the project, reviewed the archives of existing solutions, and looked at similar products for reference, before designing and assembling a prototype to show the client.
The final packaging solution consisted of an outer heavy-duty corrugated shipper with a drop-down panel at each end to allow access to the packing of the product. A corrugated sub-frame is then assembled for each layer of the product, ensuring that it’s all held securely in place, which also allowed for stacking during shipping.
The product was sampled with a full transport trial, being unloaded at the destination and fully assessed for damage, of which there was none. Alongside this, the products were now double-stackable during transit, were 100% recyclable, and provided significant cost savings in both logistics and unit costs. This met all of the requirements of the initial consultation, ending up with a product that S Lester was very pleased with.
