Open deck pallets are useful in every industry, helping companies cut packaging costs by creating a stock of reliable and reusable packages. In today’s case study, our company recommended a major European manufacturer of electronics and electric parts to replace their unreliable stock of wooden pallets with plastic open deck pallets and lids. This packaging solution also helped our client discard the supplementary cardboard packages, reduce their impact on the environment and improve its brand image among its customers.
Facing a Challenging Situation
The client has a long tradition in manufacturing electric parts and electronics which were packed in cardboard boxes and shipped on wooden pallets with wooden lids. The main challenge faced by the clients was maintaining and cleaning their stock of wooden pallets, which accumulated dirt, moisture and dust during transport.
At the same time, for almost every shipment there would be a percentage of rejected products which had been damaged during transportation. The end clients would also have to deal with the cardboard packages and pay for the collection and recycling of these single-use packaging.
Overall, our client was facing three difficult situations:
- High costs for the procurement and maintenance of their wooden pallets stock
- Expensive and inefficient cleaning of the packaging materials
- Deteriorating satisfaction reports from the clients who received damaged products with their order and had to deal with the cardboard packages
A Simple Solution: Open Deck Pallets and Lids
Logistic Packaging sent a team of experts to evaluate the situation at the client’s premises. We have identified various weak points in the client’s logistic processes, including inadequate cleanliness of the wooden pallets, despite the best efforts to maintain them. At the same time, once the products were placed on the pallets, the packaging unit was unstable, risking toppling during difficult transport conditions, damaging a percentage of the products.
There was also the issue of the cardboard boxes, which could not be reused and represented a significant quantity of waste for the end clients. They were obliged to contract specialized services to collect and recycle these packages, which in time caused them extra costs and made them feel less confident and satisfied in their business relation with the electric parts manufacturer.
For these reasons, the experts from Logistic Packaging decided to recommend the client to replace their entire stock of packaging materials (wooden and cardboard) with open deck pallets and lids.
How We Persuaded the Client
Open deck pallets are ideal for medium duty loads – such as the products manufactured by our client are. The base of the pallet is designed with a number of openings which allow liquids to drain quickly and is also easy to clean and sanitize.
Made of a mixture of anti-splintering PPC, this pallet model is recommended for intensive, long term use. It is also resistant to odors, chemicals and solvents and thus is the recommended packaging solution for all industries. As a special feature, the pallet has a 5-mm safety rim which provides extra protection to the products packed on the pallet.
Together with the open deck pallets we also recommended the plastic pallet lids which secure the products on the pallet, protect them from dust, meteorological conditions and help create a stable, stackable packing unit secured with straps and ready to be loaded in the truck and shipped to the customer.
As one extra accessory, we also recommended our client to use anti slip mats on the pallet for maximum safety. The client accepted our recommendation after watching the video demonstration proving the efficacy of this simple and affordable packaging accessory.
The Outcome
The client reported a significant increase in their clients’ satisfaction reports after the implementation of the packaging solution proposed by Logistic Packaging. They also noticed the decrease of the percentage of damaged products per shipment and lower maintenance costs for the pallets. At the same time, the cleaning and sanitizing process for the pallets is simpler and less expensive – a confirmation of one of the reasons why our company recommended this packaging solution.
In conclusion, the open deck pallet and lid packaging solution proved to be the ideal solution for our client’s problems: their packaging and logistic expenses and losses have decreased, while the image of their brand improved among their customer base.