Are you thinking about buying a stretch wrapper? Before you do, you will want to answer a few questions first. Granted, I know you probably want to get to the fun part, buying your new stretch wrapper.
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However, there are various items of consideration that you need to think about before pulling the trigger and hitting that buy button.
It may seem like a simple decision, but there are vital considerations that you should take some time to meditate upon.
For example, do you have enough space for a new stretch wrapper? How can a stretch wrapper improve your warehouse's safety?
These are but a few of the inquiries you need to mull over before confirming purchasing a new stretch wrapping machine for your business.
This article will answer the top 5 questions about stretch wrappers. Once you have read and answered these questions, you will understand the benefits of using a stretch wrapper to wrap your pallets.
The Top 5 Questions About Stretch Wrappers
When getting ready to buy a new piece of packaging machinery, there is a lot to think about. And this is also true for stretch wrappers.
Depending on your business, products, and related items, a stretch wrapper may or may not be a good choice for your business.
In order to figure out if a stretch wrapper is the right piece of packaging machinery for your company, products, and packaging line, some questions must be answered first.
Below are the top 5 questions that should be answered before making a stretch wrapper purchase. With the answers to these questions, you will be ready to chat with a packaging machinery specialist about your needs.
1. Why Would You Want Or Need A Stretch Wrapper?
This is an important question to answer, especially before trying to buy a stretch wrapper. If you don't need a stretch wrapper, why would you buy one?
It may seem trivial; however, buying a stretch wrapper just because you want one may cost your company time, money, and related assets that could be better spent elsewhere.
So, why would you need a stretch wrapper?
First and foremost, stretch wrappers are the safer option when compared to using human laborers to wrap your pallets.
Wrapping a pallet by hand requires a human being to walk briskly in circles. If you are shipping out many products, your laborers may be doing this for hours on end.
Occasional unwanted injuries due to dizziness and fatigue are not uncommon for laborers who spend 8 hours a day or more wrapping pallets by hand.
When you upgrade to a stretch wrapper, the laborers will no longer be spinning in circles all day, resulting in a safer work environment.
And a stretch wrapper maximizes both your load containment and stretch percentage, which means you will use less film resulting in less waste and more dollars saved.
Stretch wrappers also wrap much faster than human laborers, and using one will save you a great deal of time as well.
Finally, depending on how many laborers you have wrapping for how many hours each week, a stretch wrapper will often save you a ton of money.
The return on investment for a stretch wrapper is a colossal incentive in and of itself. And you can use this free stretch wrapper investment calculator to calculate your return on investment from upgrading to a new stretch wrapper!
How much money can you save with an automated stretch wrapper?
2. Do You Have The Required Space For A New Stretch Wrapper?
At first glance, this may seem like a silly question. But it's not. In fact, over the years, more than a few people have ordered a stretch wrapper only to realize upon delivery that they need more space to house it.
This is not a problem you want to have, as returning a large piece of machinery, such as a stretch wrapper, can be a time-consuming headache.
And if I had to guess, I would bet that you have many more important things to do than navigating the paperwork, calls, and correspondence required to return an unusable piece of packaging machinery.
So, before you order a stretch wrapper, take a look at the machine's spec sheets and see how much physical space you will require in your warehouse to house this machinery properly.
3. What Type Of Stretch Film Do You Use On A Stretch Wrapper?
Suppose you have never bought or used a stretch wrapper before. In that case, there are a few essential items of consideration regarding what type of stretch film you can use on your machinery.
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There are two main types of stretch films on the market today. These are hand stretch film and machine stretch film.
If you currently use human laborers to wrap your pallets, you are (or should be) using hand stretch wrap for this application.
One of the common questions we get from first-time stretch wrapper buyers is, "can we use the film our laborers are using to wrap our pallets on our stretch wrapper?"
The answer is no.
When you upgrade from hand wrapping pallets to an automated stretch wrapper, you cannot use your old hand film on your new stretch wrapping machine.
If you were to do so, this could lead to problems with your machinery, including jams, mechanical failure, and safety hazards.
4. How Can A Stretch Wrapper Improve The Safety Of Your Warehouse?
While we touched upon this in question one, the safety benefits of upgrading from hand-wrapping your pallets to a stretch wrapper cannot be overstated.
Safety should always be first. Am I right?
And so it is with stretch wrapping machinery. Stretch wrappers can help your business be a safer place to work. They do this by eliminating the need for human actions that may result in an injury.
When wrapping pallets by hand, human laborers can become dizzy and disoriented. This altered state of mind may result in poor wrapping and injury.
By switching to a pallet wrapper, you can help to ensure the safety of your employees while getting a superior wrap in a fraction of the time.
5. How Can A Stretch Wrapper Reduce Labor Costs?
It only takes one to two minutes to place a pallet on and then remove it from a stretch wrapper. This is a notably faster process to wrap a pallet.
On average, a human being spinning around a pallet of products using hand wrap takes five to ten minutes to complete the same action.
You can save a lot of time by switching from hand-wrapping pallets to using a stretch wrapper. And as the old saying goes, time is money.
Should You Upgrade To A Stretch Wrapper?
After reading this article, you should have a good idea about the potential benefits of upgrading to a stretch wrapper from hand wrapping your pallets.
But there is a lot to consider when deciding if this is the right decision for your business. Would you like to know if upgrading to a stretch wrapper from using physical labor is the right choice for your company?
If you answered yes, you will want to read this companion article Upgrading To A Semi-Automatic Stretch Wrapper.
After reading this article, you will know for sure if utilizing a stretch wrapper for your product palletizing and securing needs is the best choice for your business.
Technology has changed a great deal in the past few decades. Consequently, so has the ways in which companies package and ship their products. Before such technology became commonplace, most processes were slowly and laboriously done by hand. Nowadays, these processes are handled by specialized equipment that makes them easier, faster, and more precise than ever before. The piece of revolutionary packaging equipment you&#;ve likely heard about is the stretch wrapping machine. There are many benefits to using stretch wrapping machines at your packaging facility, from boosted production levels to increased protection for your products. But what do you use stretch wrapping machines for, exactly? What are they, and how do they work? In this guide, we&#;ll go over everything you need to know about stretch wrappers and their use.
What Are Stretch Wrappers?
A stretch wrap machine is a piece of equipment that automatically wraps pallets with stretch wrap. This keeps the products housed inside of the pallet contained and safe from damage. The main purposes of stretch wrapping are to make products easier to transport in bulk and protect individual products from damage during shipping, so they arrive at their destination point unharmed. Although pallet loads can be wrapped by hand, using machines is the faster, more reliable, and more accurate method due to a couple of reasons that we&#;ll delve into later.
Though all stretch wrappers are designed with the same end goal in mind&#;to wrap something with stretch wrap&#;their visual appearance and the way they function varies depending on their design and whether they&#;re semi-automatic or fully automatic.
The Types of Stretch Wrappers
When it comes to stretch wrapping machines, there are a lot of different options in terms of design and functionality. The most popular types include turntable, rotary arm, and horizontal configurations.
Turntable
A turntable stretch wrapping machine will feature a turntable, which is a round, revolving platform that turns in a circle while the stretch film is dispensed and applied to the pallet load. This kind of stretch wrapper is ideal for use with most applications, making it extremely versatile.
Rotary Arm
A mechanical arm that rotates around and wraps the pallet is the key feature of rotary arm stretch wrappers. This kind of stretch wrapper is ideal for use with loads that are on either end of the weight spectrum. Whether the load is super light or super heavy, a rotary arm will work with it perfectly.
Horizontal
A horizontal wrapper dispenses the stretch film from around a ring that surrounds a horizontally laid product. This kind of stretch wrapper is ideal for wrapping lengthy items that would otherwise be hard to wrap, such as windows, doors, lumber, textiles, copper piping, and corrugated tubes.
How Stretch Wrappers Work
The way that stretch wrapping machines work depends on whether the machine in question is semi-automatic or automatic.
Automatic
As the name suggests, an automatic stretch wrapping machine does everything automatically. It carries a pallet to the wrap zone via roller conveyors. Once the machine is done wrapping the pallet, it sends it to the end of the packaging line down the exit conveyor. The next pallet is transferred to the wrap zone, and the process repeats.
Semi-Automatic
A semi-automatic stretch wrapper works similarly to an automatic one. The main difference between the two is that the semi-automatic stretch wrappers require an operator to be present to load and unload the pallet and if needed manually adjust the machinery throughout the process.
Why Should I Use Stretch Wrappers?
You know what stretch wrappers are, the different types of stretch wrapping machines, and how each of their configurations work. But what do you use stretch wrapping machines for? What can these automatic machines do to improve your business&#;s efficiency and bottom line? Well, it turns out they can do quite a lot.
Many business owners wrongly assume that hand-wrapping will save them money. You won&#;t have to spend on machinery if you stick to hand wrapping, they think, and that&#;s true&#;however, wrapping something by hand is a terribly inefficient and unreliable method that&#;ll cost you more in the long run than purchasing and operating stretch wrapping machinery would. A small business might be able to get by just fine with hand wrapping, but if you&#;re wrapping more than ten loads in a day, you&#;d be much better off automating the process. There are a couple of reasons for this, which we&#;ll discuss below.
Machines Are More Reliable Than Humans
Your employees might be reliable, but it&#;s hard to beat the consistency of machines. Mistakes are only human, and your workers are bound to make the occasional blunder. They might struggle to wrap with the right amount of containment force or end up using more stretch wrap than necessary. Machines, on the other hand, will use the right amount of containment force, as well as stretch wrap, each and every time. In applying the correct amount of containment force, machines ensure that your products remain safe during transit and arrive at their destination safely. They&#;ll also stretch the film more than can be done manually, getting the most out of your stretch film investment. How, might you ask? Let&#;s find out.
Hand Film Doesn&#;t Equal Stretch Film
Hand wrapping will give you anywhere from 10 to 20 percent stretch of the film. Machine wrapping, on the other hand, can give you anywhere from 200 to 300 percent. Stretch wrappers are now being introduced that get up to 500 percent pre-stretch. By automating the stretch wrapping process, you&#;ll save money on film. This is because the right stretch wrapping technology will pre-stretch the film, allowing you to get more done with less and stretch the use of a single roll of film further.
To sum things up, stretch wrapping machines are used because they&#;re a much better alternative to hand wrapping loads. They&#;re faster, more reliable, and more cost-effective, amongst numerous other benefits.
If you&#;re planning on making the switch from hand wrapping to machine wrapping, Robopac USA has semi-automatic pallet wrappers and other state-of-the-art secondary packaging equipment that can benefit your business. We create our machinery with the latest, most efficient technology and are dedicated to providing our customers with the information and support they need to get the most out of their machines. Come and shop with us today!
If you want to learn more, please visit our website Turntable Film Wrapping System Equipment.