Wood Furnishing and Paper Pallet Sectors

Wooden pallets, especially in situations where their reuse is compulsory, is becoming less economical.
The recovery, together with the need for special treatment in cases of export outside Europe, makes this type of transport support extremely expensive.
A client, who is not only an international leader in manufacturing and marketing furniture, but also in the study of “accessories” to go with the product being sold, has revolutionised the packaging system for transport: no longer wooden pallets, but disposable “paper pallets”!
Securing products onto wooden pallets occurs by means of traditional straps and by affixing cardboard corners to protect the product in order to prevent boxes from breaking due to the tension of the straps.
Already being a problem with a large number of products on wooden pallets, this is emphasised even more by introducing cardboard pallets. If protections were previously affixed on the upper part of the package only, with the “paper pallet” it would be necessary to also affix them at the bottom. Moreover, the common problem of all strapped packages arises when the pallets are stored in the warehouse, piling them on two/three/four levels. Those at the bottom tend to flatten slightly and completely lose the strap tension: if you want to have a stable load, you must repeat the strapping operation when delivering.
The solution to this series of problems was found by replacing the strap with wrapping stretch film:

• stretch film is an elastic material, therefore, it also easily “recovers” a drop in product size by a few centimetres
• stretch film is a “soft” material and does not damage the upper boxes or the lower cardboard pallet
• the wrapping machine with stretch film has close to zero maintenance
• the stretch film sealing ability can be easily compared to that of the straps

Area srl has set up these systems:

• rolling shutter conveyor infeed to the machine
• Ring 180 automatic wrapping machine
• rolling shutter conveyor outfeed from the machine, complete with a pneumatic flap

ideal to package (depending on the line structure) up to 80/100 paper pallets/hour.
Experience in this sector and with this type of product, today enables us to recommend this solution to completely different kinds of sectors:

• elimination of straps
• elimination of various protections (cardboard corners, etc.)
• replacement with a Ring model horizontal wrapping machine using stretch film