Packaging Automation Solutions: Am I Ready?
When your business is growing, it can be both exciting and just a little bit scary. New customers, increased product orders, and higher output are always a good thing, but figuring out how to keep up with all of this tends to be a little daunting. How does your team keep up with all the extra work and how do you ensure that every single item that leaves your facility meets all of your exacting quality standards? One simple answer to these concerns is through packaging automation solutions. But how do you know if your operation is ready to add fully automatic or semi-automatic packaging equipment to your line? To help you get this all figured out with a clear answer, we’re covering some of the key elements to examine when you begin to determine if you’re ready for packaging automation solutions.
Can My Team Handle the Current Workload?
The good news? Your products are practically flying out the door. The bad news? Your manual packaging process makes it difficult to keep up with the increased workload. You could hire more staff to help pack faster, but labor expenses just keep creeping higher and higher with no end in sight. Thankfully, the best way to manage this is through packaging automation — and it doesn’t even have to be anything complicated. A case sealer quickly and securely tapes up all of your corrugated boxes, an automatic stretch wrapper provides outstanding stability to your pallets, and something as basic as a semi-automatic twist tie machine easily expedites your bagging process. Each of these packaging automation solutions helps your line move faster, and saves your operation plenty of money and materials over the long term.
Is the Competition Getting Ahead?
Keeping tabs on the competition is just good business sense. When you begin to realize that your direct competitors are implementing packaging automation solutions to their process, it may be the sign you’ve been waiting for that it’s time to do the same. In the modern age of lightning-fast shipping, customers are no longer willing to wait around for companies who take their sweet time getting packages together and then drag their feet sending them out the door. If you take too long to package orders, your customer will move on to purchase from the competition. Thankfully, packaging automation allows you to move faster and time your shipments just right. Equipment like auto baggers, air pillow systems, shrink wrappers, and beyond all speed up your packaging line and help you exceed customer shipping expectations in order to stay ahead of the competition.
How Much am I Spending on Labor?
Every business owner and manager has dealt with it before. Labor costs are constantly on the rise and keeping up with those always-increasing expenses can be difficult. Additionally, labor isn’t always reliable. You can have the best team in the world, but even just a few missed days can slow you down. If these costs are beginning to climb too high and your budget can’t handle it, it’s time to seek out packaging automation solutions. Packaging equipment easily keeps up with the demands of your business and never takes a day off. Better yet, when you add automatic packaging machines to your line, your team won’t have to constantly perform the repetitive motions that come along with packing boxes and pallets, which often results in strain injuries or worse.
Are My Employees Happy?
Employees who are happy with their jobs and company will work harder and more effectively than those who aren’t. If demand increases but the workforce stays the same, your team will soon feel the strain and you’ll see a decrease in performance quality, and therefore in the quality and capability of your packaging as well. As demand increases, you can ensure that your team stays happy and satisfied at work with the help of packaging automation. Automated packaging equipment picks up the slack when manual labor just can’t keep up. It produces outstanding results while allowing your team members to avoid the inherent stress, exhaustion, and strain injuries that come along with constantly increasing workloads.
Am I Ready to Automate?
Once you’ve taken the time to examine your business and packaging process in depth, you’ll have to decide if you’re ready to move forward with packaging automation solutions. Make sure to consider every angle – your current workload, employee satisfaction, expenses, staying ahead of the competition, and more. If you’re on the fence or would simply like to discuss your variety of options for automation, we invite you to contact one of our expert packaging automation specialists today. Reach us online or by calling (800) 277-7007.
