As we were reading Green Your Supply Chain: 7 Questions and 7 Tips, we were thinking about how inexpensively one can buy overwrappers these days. The question is what value do you get for your money?
One critical point Green Your Supply Chain makes is that more durable and reliable equipment usually costs more. We do NOT agree, although upfront cost may be higher. If you look at the total cost of ownership, we think you will be agreeably surprised by how inexpensive our FA-ST overwrappers are.
Total cost of ownership includes upfront cost plus energy, maintenance, downtime and wrapping material over the expected life of the machine.
For energy, our machines run on 30 amp service. If you buy a shrink wrapper, you need 60 amp service for the heat tunnel alone.
What makes for durable and reliable? Package Machinery supports overwrappers that are 90 years old. (Yes, they are still running in real production outside a museum!) We think that means durable. Clearly they must be reliable, since they are still in use. That’s the model for how we build them and rebuild them.
Reliable also means that your machine has good uptime and minimal downtime. Downtime is created by wear, maintenance and changeover. So minimizing the time spent on these activities is important. Our servo machines have 65% fewer moving parts than mechanical machines. That is 65% fewer things to break or need repair. We have customers who do 10 minute changeovers, so changeover can be minimal too.
What about scrap? Our overwrappers use the least amount of material to wrap of any type of wrapping machine . There is no film waste, as there is with a shrink wrapper. Our material conforms to the package, so there is not loose film as in a flowwrapper. We have demonstrated up to 50% less film use for overwrapping rather than flow wrapping.
What about flexibility? Do you want to be able to run a different gauge or film tomorrow? or next year? Our FA-ST machine can handle thinner gauges than other overwrappers. In fact it does handle gauges ranging from 80 to 220 and beyond. We try cellulose films, PLA films and all sorts of polypropylene films. We constantly test films to see how they perform on our machines and work with most film suppliers.
Lastly, we can rebuild old machines and give them another lease on life. We have rebuilt machines adding new, modern guards, new electrics and controls to 60+ year old machines. They should be good for another 60+ years.
We think our wrapping machines are both green and sustainable by most definitions.