As we were reading Green Your Supply Chain: 7 Questions and 7 Tips, we were thinking about how inexpensively one can buy new packaging machinery these days. The question is what value do you get for your money?

One critical point this article makes is that more durable and reliable equipment usually costs more.

FA wrapper from 1937

What makes for durable and reliable? Package Machinery supports wrapping machines that are 90 years old. Yes, they are still running outside a museum!! We think that is durable, and clearly they must be reliable, since they are still in use.

We have rebuilt machines that are over 50 years in service to give them 50 more.

Price is the only consideration you should consider, but it is  price per product wrapped.  Thinking in those terms means that long running machines have a lower price per product wrapped, despite a higher initial cost to purchase. Machines that use less material to wrap or less energy are also machines that reduce your price per product wrapped.

And those old machines’ carbon footprints have gotten pretty low over the years!!