Ask Steve
January 30, 2025
From Allen: We negotiated a great price for a high-performance stretch film, but our production team has complained about web breaks, and we have not seen any reduction in our film spend, we are struggling to understand why.
Hi Allen,
Thank you for contacting us. There are many companies experiencing the very same thing. I am confident that we can get to the bottom of it for you.
If you do not track your film spend as a cost-per-pallet, you are really in the dark before you begin, and here is why. Your film spend month-to-month varies based on when you receive your film shipments. If something changes in the wrap configuration or stretch wrap machine performance, you likely will not know it, and then months later, when you review film usage reports for that period, the usage and spend can be through the roof. You have done your job, you have negotiated a great price, you are buying a performance film, what more can you do?
We will come back to stretch film cost per pallet in a minute, but first, let’s talk a little about the web breaks that your team was complaining about. There is a key word in your question that is a clue: your production team “has.” Does this mean that they are not currently screaming at you about it? Web breaks are very disruptive to production, and keep in mind that their job performance is measured by the plant output. Anything that constrains the output is a big problem and can affect people’s income or potential for job growth.
It is possible to quantify, in general terms, the impact of a web break. Automatic lines are not usually monitored by someone at the stretch wrap machine. So, if the film breaks during a wrap cycle, the machine will go into a fault condition and stop. It will turn on an alarm, but there can be a lengthy delay before someone gets to the machine. Once there, they must enter a caged-off area and, based on your safety protocol, they likely need to perform lock out – tag. Then they must home the carriage and reattach the film to the load, exit the cage, remove the locks and restart the wrap cycle. In some operations, I have seen a delay of up to thirty minutes. If this happens four times a shift, that is twelve per day or six hours of down time due to web breaks. If you produce six hundred pallets per day, that is a loss of 150 pallets. A big deal! Operators can be extremely resourceful, able to find creative ways around most challenges. They FEEL they can fix the problem by reducing the machine setting for applied tension until there are no more web breaks. Problem solved, right? Well not so much, because your film usage just increased exponentially, while your load containment has been dramatically reduced. If your team is no longer complaining about web breaks, that is exactly what they did.
While this may answer your question about web breaks, I think we need a little more context, because there are a few layers left to explore, like why the film was breaking in the first place. You buy a performance film to prevent load failures. This film has a higher stretch resistance than traditional films; and it provides better unitizing force around the load, minimizing individual component movement during transportation. However, the only way the film can do that is to be stretched by a greater percentage than the traditional film for it to reach its “peak performance zone”. Life would be so easy if that were all, but now the other shoe drops. As it stretches the film’s elasticity is reduced (giving it load containment performance) which is good, however, its resistance to breaking on a sharp corner of the pallet, box, slip sheet, or whatever else, is also reduced. To sum it up, the film only performs when you stretch it far enough, but when you do, it tends to break. Now you understand the root cause.
We have studied the science of load containment and approached it differently than the film manufacturers have. To reach maximum performance while eliminating web breaks, we have incorporated patented reinforcement filaments into the film. This changes what the film manufacturer refers to as the Ultimate Strength Curve. That means we can stretch the film farther, producing much higher load containment, while eliminating web breaks, and using about half the stretch film you normally would.
We have a load containment solution that we know will bring value to you; but what prevents someone from making changes that will drive your cost up and load containment down? We are concerned about the same thing. A local Field Service Engineer from our national network would be assigned to your plant to perform periodic audits, ensuring the equipment is performing optimally and verifying that no unauthorized changes have been made by operators. In addition to that, we have developed a monitoring system that can alert you immediately if there has been a change that will affect your cost per pallet or load containment - it even monitors your wrap cycle time. Specific to your needs, it quantifies and tracks your film cost per pallet, so you know where you are minute to minute with your film spend. No more unpleasant surprises.
Our mission is to identify challenges the industry faces and bring unique, cost-effective solutions that work because they are based on science.
Thanks for asking.
