newsworthy
UPS Inc. and packaging giant Sealed Air Corp. have
teamed up to help shippers streamline their packaging
and reduce shipping costs, a task that has taken on more
importance in light of recent moves by UPS and rival
FedEx Corp. to make it more costly to ship parcels that
contain excess packaging.
The announcement formalizes a partnership that began in
2015. UPS customers will gain
access to package-engineering
intelligence through Sealed
Air’s “Packaging Application
Centers,” which provide
design, testing, and packaging performance analysis at
27 global locations. Sealed Air
will offer packaging systems
and materials to small to mid-sized UPS shippers through
the Atlanta-based company’s
Customer Technology Program (CTP), which connects
those UPS customers to an array of its vendors. Sealed
Air will also open a customer showroom in early 2017
on the Louisville, Ky., campus of UPS Supply Chain
Solutions, a UPS unit.
The initiative will initially focus on leveraging Sealed
Air products and services in the “package filler” segment,
which addresses issues involving parcel integrity and
damage prevention, said Glenn Zaccara, a spokesman
for UPS. Sealed Air also offers services that focus on
package size and design, both of which affect a parcel’s
dimensional weight and, by extension, its shipping cost.
UPS; its chief rival, Memphis, Tenn.-based FedEx
Corp.; and other parcel delivery firms have pushed
shippers for years to reduce surplus packaging. UPS and
FedEx claim that bulky, high-cube parcels occupy a disproportionate amount of space aboard vans and truck
trailers. For this reason, FedEx and UPS have expanded
the universe of parcels subject to pricing based on their
dimensions, which results in higher shipping rates than
pricing parcels based on their actual weight.
A STRAIN ON CAPACITY
Despite those efforts, the carriers are still struggling with
an increase in package cube, a problem that has been
exacerbated by the explosive growth of e-commerce and
the resulting increase in parcel traffic. According to con-
sultancy eMarketer Inc., worldwide e-commerce sales
will reach $1.92 trillion in 2016 and exceed $4 trillion by
the end of 2020. A forecast by global technology com-
pany Pitney Bowes Corp. projected that parcel shipping
volumes from 12 major countries, including the U.S.,
will grow 5 to 7 percent annually from 2016 to 2018,
paced by growth in cross-border shipping.
In addition, as online ordering expands to include a
broader range of products, carriers are straining to handle items like kayaks and PingPong tables, which their infrastructures were not designed
for. FedEx Ground, FedEx’s
ground-delivery unit, which
handles much of the company’s domestic e-commerce volume, is close to running out of
capacity due to sheer volume
and an increase in orders of
outsized commodities, according to a person familiar with
the matter.
Ken Chrisman, president of
Sealed Air’s product care division, said in an e-mail that the e-commerce surge has
led many retailers and carriers to opt for a “one size fits
all” approach to packaging practices, which leads to what
Chrisman called “too-big boxes stuffed with filler.” “The
repetitive ‘stuff-fill-repeat’ model is fast and simple, and
requires minimal training, but it’s an inefficient use of
resources,” he said.
An objective of the UPS partnership is to “dispel the
notion” that cost and speed have to be sacrificed to gain
packaging efficiency, Chrisman said in the e-mail. “It’s
entirely possible to minimize packaging material while
still providing appropriate protection against damage
and without slowing down packaging speed,” he said.
Sealed Air is perhaps best known for its 1960 invention
of the ubiquitous “Bubble Wrap” packaging.
UPS, Sealed Air team up to streamline parcel packaging
Mallory Alexander International Logistics has
opened a new office and warehouse in Miami,
Fla., to serve the region’s import and export sector. … Penske Truck Leasing has opened a facility
in Millville, N.J., that will offer consumer and commercial truck rental, full-service truck leasing, and
contract maintenance services to customers in the
state’s Southeastern region and shore towns. …
reLogistics Services, a provider of reusable asset
management services, has opened a new reverse
logistics center in Jacksonville, Fla.
ground breakers
