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Drug Administration.
Before you select a type of packaging, Kukuk recommends getting a customer’s and/or supplier’s input on how
they would like to implement a reusables program. Ask
them how they’d like to receive the packaging and return it
and how they’d like their employees to pick out of the asset
or place items into it.
▪ 4. Manage the assets. Reusable packaging is inherently
valuable and can cost anywhere from $60 to several hundred dollars per piece. In order to get the most from these
assets, companies must have processes in place to track,
return, clean, repair, and eventually recycle or dispose of the
material.
A pooler can help with the nuts and bolts of tracking and
maintaining the assets. For example, many poolers will provide their customers (and their customers’ partners) with
scanners and systems to track assets. They will also ensure
the assets are returned in a timely manner and that they are
cleaned and repaired.
But contracting with a pooler doesn’t mean you can sim-
ply step away from the operation; clients still have to be
actively engaged in the process. “You need to understand
[exactly] how you’re going to be charged and who is
responsible when one of these valuable pallets or totes goes
outside the system or is broken,” says Craig Densmore, a
consultant with Supply Chain Optimizers and a professor
of packaging at the Rochester Institute of Technology. “You
don’t want to receive a bill for a million dollars from the
pooler because you can’t account for reusables that they say
are in your possession. It does take some administration
from both sides.”
It is also critical that your suppliers or customers play an
active role in managing the fleet of assets. “Don’t allow
them to sit on inventory,” says Kukuk. “Make sure you’ve
detailed exactly how much they are allowed to keep on
hand. Without that, you can get into a situation where your
suppliers or customers are just building up buffers of pack-
aging, and you find that your fleet is not turning over as fast
as it could be.”
That’s a situation you definitely want to avoid, says Dave
Mabon, head of contract packaging for third-party logistics
service provider Genco. For cost reasons, you need to get as
many turns as possible from each asset, he says.
▪ 5. Train, train, and train some more! To get the most out
of the investment, employees must be properly trained on
how to use and care for the asset, says Densmore. That
might mean, for example, making sure associates know how
to collapse and/or stack the items for maximum cube utilization when they are in return mode, he says.
▪ 6. Periodically reanalyze your packaging needs.
Companies should recognize that as business conditions
change, they may also have to adjust their packaging. For
example, a business that has recently automated its opera-
tions might find it has to switch to a different type of
reusable packaging. Or as the type of product being shipped
changes, a company may need to switch to bigger or
stronger containers.
The important thing, according to Kukuk, is to have procedures in place to ensure your program is re-evaluated on
an ongoing basis. Companies with successful reusable packaging programs, he says, are continually “rightsizing” their
packaging to make sure they are using the right packaging
for the right application. ;
Repeat user
When dairy product company Fairlife switched from
using fiberboard containers to plastic reusuable totes
for shipping milk to grocery chain Kroger, the benefits were immediately noticeable.
“It was cheaper, cleaner, and easier for the end customer to deal with,” says Hans Maron, Fairlife’s vice
president of operations.
The fiberboard containers, which cost around
$100 apiece, had to be recycled after one use. In
contrast, the reusable totes, which Fairlife rents
from pooler CAPS, can be used 50 to 60 times before
they need replacement. “Totes, as long as they don’t
get damaged, have a life of three to four years,”
says Maron.
The main reason for Fairlife’s switch to reusables,
however, was ease of use. The totes are easier to fill
and empty than the fiberboard version. They’re also
stronger. With fiberboard, according to Maron,
there’s more of a risk of a forklift tine’s puncturing
the packaging. Additionally, if the fiberboard is
stacked, it can get pinched and start to leak. The
totes, on the other hand, can be stacked 10 to 15
feet high.
Furthermore, CAPS has made leasing convenient
for Fairlife. As part of its service, CAPS picks up the
totes from the Kroger facility, cleans them, wraps
them in plastic, and returns them to Fairlife.
There were a couple of factors that made Fairlife a
good candidate for reusable packaging. First, the
company had a closed-loop supply chain. It ships out
filled totes from a single Fairlife location to a single
Kroger location, where the milk is processed to make
the grocery chain’s own branded Greek yogurt.
Second, the company had the shipment volume and
consistency (300 to 400 totes per month) to make
returns economical. “If you have lower volumes and
they don’t turn often, you’re going to end up paying
more to make sure they don’t accumulate as much at
the end user,” Maron explains. “With higher volumes—because you can fit about 108 totes in a trailer—you’re able to take full truckloads, which cuts
back on shipping costs.”
