Total cost of shipping
The total cost of shipping doesn’t just relate to the cost of the freight to get your load from your facility to the point of sale. It also includes hidden costs, such as:
- Visible damage
- Concealed damage
- Labor costs
- Safety issues
- Customer satisfaction
The difference between visible damage and concealed damage can be the difference between a sellable product and an unsellable one. When a truckload arrives at a receiving dock, shifted pallets and crushed boxes can show signs of visible damage. What about the boxes on the pallet that you can’t see? Or the products within the boxes that are damaged during transit that the customer won’t see until they take the product home.
Concealed damage forces you to return the product, inspect, repackage, and reship the product. The cost of that item has just increased exponentially because of damage that couldn’t be seen when the trailer doors were opened.
Cost of shipping trickles down the line
Managers outside of the logistics and packaging groups are largely oblivious to damage unless it directly affects their own cost centers. Therefore, they may not actively try to prevent damage, especially if they’re paying the cost of prevention. However, the costs of damage ripples through the entire organization in the form of both direct and indirect expenses.
Filing a freight claim, for example, typically takes about two hours. That’s two hours of lost productivity. Damaged items also must be inspected and stored, taking up more time and requiring additional space. When prorating the total costs of damaged goods storage, including property taxes, utilities, and rent or mortgage, the costs escalate.
Additionally, a failed pallet can impact a receiving department for up to half an hour. During that time, two to three additional people may be pulled from their normal duties to assist in picking up the load.
If there are damages and products have to go through the reclamation process that can take an additional half an hour, using more labor for a non-revenue generating task. A total of up to two man hours are wasted because of a single failed pallet.
Now consider how much time would be lost if you had a fully loaded trailer of up to 60 pallets. Consider how much money would be lost if that fully loaded trailer was contaminated by poultry that shifted, potentially hitting the floor of the trailer. Gross right? Clean up on aisle 5!
Using Dunnage Airbags to fill voids and provide load stabilization
The most cost effective way to fill the voids on trailers and brace your shipments is to use Dunnage Airbags.
Economical: Damage rates decline, labor is reduced, and the cost of the type of materials is greatly reduced compared to other securement methods, such as metal or lumber.
Eliminates Potential 3 Dimensional Cargo Movements: Load shifting is the major cause of transit damage. By correctly bracing the load to mitigate movement in all directions, damage is eliminated.
Easy to Use: The bags can be installed and removed in minutes with very little physical labor involved for fast and easy loading and unloading.
Looking for even more on Dunnage Airbags?
See also:
- How to properly use & operating pressures for dunnage air bags
- Applications for dunnage air bags
- Air bag width and void sizes
- Dunnage airbags protect truckloads during shipping
- Choosing the right air bag
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