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For over 40 years, Steel King Industries has been
designing and manufacturing high-quality,
competitively priced material handling solutions.
Steel Guard ® Guard Rails Industrial Containers
• AS/RS Storage Systems
• Rack Supported Buildings
• Multi-level Pick Modules
• Flow and Pushback Racking
Systems
• Pallet Racks
• Drive-In / Drive-Thru Racks
• Cantilever Racks
• Portable and Custom
Shipping Racks
• Mezzanines /
Work Platforms
• Industrial Containers
• Industrial Guard Rails
FOR MORE INFORMATION, CALL 800-826-0203
Cantilever Rack
Rack Storage Systems
Pallet Rack
Dynamic Storage
and shut down the line to install it. The
extra machine can also keep the line moving while the other is undergoing maintenance or consumables are being refilled.
5Make it simpler. Using complex packaging that requires a lot of fold- ing and forming in the line can
really slow things down. For instance,
inserts with multiple folds that take some
effort to fit into a box correctly typically
require many time-consuming touches
and may not be easy for people to master. From the standpoint of speed, says
O’Neill, a better choice would be to use a
prefabricated unit, like a thermal-formed
or pulp-molded tray that can be quickly
dropped into the box and fitted around
the product.
6Take operating speed into consid- eration. Each piece of equipment requires a different amount of time
to complete its task. To prevent slower
machines from compromising productivity, position them farther down the
line if the packing method allows. Moris
cites the example of a customer that had
to print and insert lengthy packing lists
into its orders. Rather than hold things
up waiting for the multipage lists to print
out, Invata placed the printer/inserter farther downstream. As soon as the ordered
items are “married” to a shipping carton,
the system instructs the printer to produce the packing list, thus allowing plenty
of time for printing before the carton
arrives at the document inserter.
7Pay attention to pacing. If bottle- necks develop on a partially auto- mated line, it could be because the
pace at which operators are working is not
well matched to the flow and speed of the
equipment, says Andy Smith, president
of Consumer and Industrial Logistics for
Genco, a third-party logistics company
that has a packaging division. “For exam-
ple, you could have eight people working
on a line, but if one has a four-minute
task and another has a two-minute task,
that’s where the bottleneck will be,” he
says. He suggests observing the operators
to validate the time required for each task
and then balancing the work to maintain
the necessary pace and ensure a consistent
work flow. Lean techniques such as those
used to manage manufacturing produc-
tion lines can help here.
8“Shake hands” the right way. If the integration of equipment, software, and control systems
is not done properly, an order’s
progress through the packaging
line will be a bumpy one indeed.
“You have to make sure the soft-
ware is programmed correctly, that
it works in conjunction with every
piece of equipment, and that each
piece of equipment works properly
with the others,” says Louis Suffern,
e-commerce solutions manager with
Sealed Air’s Product Care division.
At every juncture, he explains, there
