A producer of Christmas Trees in North Carolina needed our help. In order to transport more trees on a single truck, and to facilitate the transfer of inventory between retail locations, the customer began bundling the trees in compressed pallets held together by strapping. The customer was concerned that the ¾ x .025 High tensile Steel Strapping they had planned on using was going to be costly to them and dangerous for the workers who opened the bundles since the trees were under pressure.
IPS Packaging proposed a new method of bundling the pallets that used polyester strapping rather than steel strapping and also used a pneumatic combination tool hung with a tool balancer at the strapping site. After a number of tests, IPS recommended a 5/8” x .045 polyester strap as the ideal answer to the customer’s concerns. The polyester had a lower cost than the steel, was much safer to work with, and allowed the customer to more quickly complete the bundling process. Additionally, the organization of the work area, particularly with the use of a pneumatic tool suspended from a balancer, allowed the customer to decrease the time necessary to bundle each pallet. The savings to this customer exceeded ten thousand dollars annually.
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A producer of Christmas trees was bundling trees on a compressed pallet held together by dangerous and costly steel strapping.
- Dangerous to workers who opened bundles
- Very expensive product
- Time consuming
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Convert to polyester strapping and use a pneumatic tool hung with a tool balancer at the strapping site.
- Polyester strapping has a much lower cost than steel strapping
- Polyester is much safer to work with
- Customer can complete a bundling process much quicker, thus saving on labor
After converting to polyester strapping, the customer was said to save over 15% annually on product and labor.
With the dramatic increase in the cost of steel, many companies are finding that polyester strapping provides the same performance as steel strapping but at a fraction of the cost. As of August 2004, companies are saving up to 78 percent by converting to polyester strapping. Polyester is the most rigid of all strapping materials. Polyester is nick resistant and can be sealed with seals, heat, or friction welds. Polyester offers the greatest strength and highest retained tension of all plastic strapping, it is frequently used on heavy duty loads that need high initial tension along with high retained tension during handling and storage. To ensure the best performance from polyester strapping, be sure to check out the full line of application equipment and accessories, including seals, hand tools, power strapping machines and dispensers.
