With so many options on the market such as different pallet wrap film strengths and grades, hand and machine wrap options, blown or stretch film  – it can become pretty confusing.  You may also be looking for eco-friendly options with health and safety solutions as well as advice on how to be as efficient as possible with your pallet wrap.  This can have a huge impact on time and budget savings so there’s a lot at stake. So how can you really know which pallet wrap is the right one for your business? Let’s explore the options in detail.

Hand or machine pallet wrap?

This really comes down to the size of your business and what will be most cost effective, taking in consideration the trade off in staffing levels and labour time  versus mechanising this process. In a business where a low number of pallets are being wrapped each month, it makes sense to invest in a hand pallet wrap solution rather than the expense of machine wrap. But that’s not the end of the story! There are still plenty of opportunities to be had in terms of eco friendly options to reduce your single use plastic consumption as well as improving on health and safety in the warehouse. One such product is the Gripfilm system which boasts a whole range of features.

Making sense of pallet wrap

Slips and trips during the palletising process can be eliminated by this system as the user is able to work forwards around the pallet using the patented special dispenser. It promotes faster wrapping thus reducing the price per pallet in terms of reduced labour time. More than this though, Gripfilm has the capacity to reduce the cost per pallet even further as less film is needed. This is what is known in the industry as a high performance film when compared to ordinary stretch film as it much thinner. Using this could deliver a cost per pallet reduction of 40%. Something else to think about is if your operation is spread over a large area and you have lots of people picking and building orders for despatch, hand wrapping would be the preferred option. This will eliminate the travelling time to a machine wrapper and creating bottlenecks.

Time to automate?

If your business is wrapping and despatching over 15 pallets a day, it may be a good time to look at automation. There is lots of scope here to gain cost advantages based on the film and machinery used. How the machine is set up will have a huge impact on the amount of film used. The sweet spot is being able to use the least amount of film possible to stabilise the load. Getting the right machinery and the right film is critical and it may be a good time to call in some expert advice to get this optimally set up. There are many high performance films on the market which can deliver incredible results using minimal volume and therefore become eco-friendly options. Break through technologies in film materials allow for even further reduction of single use plastic consumption which improves your cost per pallet and green credentials.

Making sense of pallet wrap

To fully realise the true cost reducing potential of new pallet wrap materials and processes, why not get in touch for a completely free, no obligation review. We can provide a complete report on how and where you can save money from day 1.