What to Know about your Wrapping Project Before you talk to wrapping machinery providers, So you can ask the right questions

1. What is the purpose of the wrap? Protection? Enhancement?  Shelf life? Marketing? Tamper evidence? All of the above?
2. Does the product need an airtight wrap because of its contents?
3. How is it being wrapped now and why is that not satisfactory?
4. What alternative wrap styles are possible?
5. What are the dimensions of the product(s) to be wrapped? Are they consistent from one to another? What are the variations/ tolerances?
6. What material(s) can they be wrapped in? Paper, polypropylene film? Bio-based film? Waxed paper? Paper-backed foil? Is it being wrapped with plain or printed? film/paper? What gauge (thickness) is the material you plan to use? Can your wrap process handle the material you would like to use?
7. What is the current line speed?
8. What is throughput?
9. Which is the slowest machine in the packaging line?
10. How fast does the wrapper need to be running in 12 months?
11. How is the ROI or payback calculated? What does it include? Not Include?
12. How fast can the product tolerate being run?
13. What are the dimensions of the product? Are they consistent?

• What is the purpose of the wrap? Protection? Enhancement?  Shelf life? Marketing? Tamper evidence? All of the above?

Knowing your priorities guides you in weighing the relative importance of these factors in making your decision about what wrapping process to use. It also helps you evaluate the needed qualities of the wrapping material.

• Does the product need an airtight wrap because of its contents?

Various products need varying degrees of product protection. Food products with nuts, whole grains and fruit need a complete barrier seal preferably with a gas flush to remove opportunities for oxidation and to improve shelf life. Others need to breathe a little.

• How is it being wrapped now and why is that not satisfactory?

Understanding your dissatisfaction with the current process will help you evaluate the important problems you want solved.

• What alternative wrap styles are possible?

Shrink wrap, flowwrap, overwrap and diefold wrap are all ways of primary wrapping a product. Each has its pluses and minuses. Some may not be suitable for your product. Understanding your product(s), your volume of production and the material with which you want to wrap will help you to weigh your options. Learn more about wrap styles.

• What are the dimensions of the product(s) to be wrapped? Are they consistent from one to another? What are the variations/ tolerances?

Some wrapping processes are more tolerant of product variations than others.

• What material(s) can they be wrapped in? Paper, polyethylene or polypropylene film? Bio-based film? Waxed paper? Paper-backed foil?

This is both a product and marketing decision.  You should consider your alternatives and have thought this through. Some wrapping process require certain characteristics of the material to be used.  For instance, shrink requires polyethylene film where  Flowwrap, overwrap and diefold wrap require polypropylene film.  The difference is in the film flexibility and shrink-ability. Overwrap can use paper or waxed paper. To seal paper requires a glue system or treated paper. Paper-backed foil is not customarily sealed.

• Is it being wrapped with plain or printed? film/paper? What gauge (thickness) is the material you plan to use? Can your wrap process handle the material you would like to use?

Some shrink films cannot be printed on.  Sometimes the printing process needs to be done carefully so that the printing survives the wrapping process without marring.

Gauge in film affects product appearance. While you can choose between glossy and matte, it is important to match your gauge with the necessary appearance of your product. Higher gauge is usually associated with higher priced products.

• What is the current line speed?

Line speed is one measure of machine evaluation. The machine you buy should be faster than what it is replacing, so that you are adding capacity, but the key point to explore is the reliability of that line speed.

• What is throughput?

This can vary from line speed if there are slowdowns, machine downtime, packaging rejects, etc.

As a manufacturer of wrapping machinery, which is usually the last piece of primary packaging, it is common for the wrapping process to detect defects in prior packaging. For instance, we have been able to determine in several cases the cause of the poor wrapping as the significant variations in the trays or boxes that were being wrapped.

• Which is the slowest machine in the packaging line?

This calculation includes efficiency, not simply machine speed. Your slowest process is your least productive, not necessarily the one that runs slowest. Sometimes your slowest process is a manual one.

• How fast does the wrapper need to be running in 12 months?

You don’t want to buy just for today’s needs but you don’t want to go far over expected capacity either.

• How is the ROI or payback calculated? What does it include? Not Include?

Possible calculations beside capital cost include labor efficiency, material costs, energy, planned maintenance as well as speed. Total Cost of Ownership looks not simply at capital cost but also the operating cost of the process over the lifetime of the machine, or the playback period. Many people find that material and energy costs are of critical importance to consider because they can change the calculation.

• How fast can the product tolerate being run?

Some products cannot handle very high speed due to their composition. For others, the quality of the wrap may deteriorate at higher speed. For instance, high end cosmetics or perfumes want a perfect wrap and will accept a lower speed to achieve it.  Fragility of the products, variation in dimension, inconsistent sizing contribute to less than perfect wraps and slower speeds.

• What are the dimensions of the product? Are they consistent?

The tighter the wrap the more important it is to be consistent in the sizing.  Both overwrap and die fold wrap require that product be consistent in at least two dimensions. Not all products can be made consistently sized.  Baked goods will vary.  The less consistency exists, the slower the wrapping process will be and the less perfect the wrap. Flow wrap and shrink wrap are more tolerant of inconsistency but also use more film and, in the case of shrink wrap, more energy.