DC Velocity - February 2014

The Problem: When it’s your job to repair television sets, the last thing you want is for items to sustain further damage while being shipped to your repair centers. But that was the problem Lifetime Service Center faced.

Lifetime Service Center provides repair services for electronics companies and manufacturers as well as for extended warranty providers, such as big-box retailers. One of the main items its technicians service is flat-screen TVs. When a consumer has a TV that needs fixing, he or she calls Lifetime, which ships him or her a box and packaging material. The consumer then puts the damaged product into the box and sends it to one of the company’s repair facilities.

“It’s critical that the materials we provide are easy for consumers to use and, most importantly, perform during shipping,” says Kam Bleuer, distribution manager for Lifetime.

But about five years ago, Lifetime was finding that its packaging materials for large (up to 42-inch) flat-screen TVs were not performing up to standard. The TVs were arriving at the repair centers with cracked screens.

What was particularly perplexing was that Lifetime was not scrimping on packaging. The company was using a well-established foam-in-bag packaging solution, where chemical foam is placed inside a bag and the bag expands around the product to cushion it. But something about it was not working. “We had to find another solution or risk long-term damage to our customer service reputation,” says Bleuer.

The Solution: A chance meeting at a networking event led to the eventual solution. At the event, two Lifetime employees were introduced to Fred Witkowski, a sales representative at packaging specialist Sealed Air. The Lifetime people mentioned the problem they were having with their current foam-in-bag system (which was provided by one of Sealed Air’s competitors), and Witkowski offered to help.

To figure out what was going on, Sealed Air tested Lifetime’s packaging at its Packaging Design Center in Danbury, Conn. There, packaging professionals subjected the company’s current packaging to vibration and drop tests. “During testing, we figured out that Lifetime’s biggest problem was they were using too much foam material on the corner cushions, and this was causing the television screens to crack,” says Witkowski.

Sealed Air experimented with dif-
ferent foam formulations and found
one that created cushions that were
not too dense yet were still durable
enough to be used for shipping a TV
both to and from Lifetime’s service
center. “Ultimately, we determined that
Instapak GFlex foam would be the best
formulation for Lifetime’s needs,” says
Witkowski. “The density of this formu-
lation meant they would be using less
foam to create cushions that performed
appropriately.”
Sealed Air also found there was
room for improvement in Lifetime’s
cushion-making process. At the time,
Lifetime personnel were forming the

problemsolved

Problem: Preventing
damage during transit

THE PLAYERS CUSTOMER Lifetime Service Center Primary business:

Providing repair services for major electronics and appliance manufacturers as well as retailers that offer extended warranty services

Locations:

Williamsville, N.Y., and Ontario, Calif.

SUPPLIER Sealed Air Corp.

SOLUTION On-demand foam-in-bag packaging equipment (SpeedyPacker Insight Foam-in-Bag Packaging System and Instapak Molding Wheel, Instapak iMold System)