It is important to make the right choice of strapping equipment for packaging and logistics companies. Be it securing the package of your box, bundling items, or prepping a unit load for shipping, the right strapping machine could increase operational efficiency, preserve the products you transport, and lower labor costs. This article will help you make the most relevant strapping equipment choice, with the primary attention on the auto strapping machine and the input from HM Marketing Services and other industry luminaries.
Understanding Your Business Needs
Some general ideas of your business’s strapping needs can help you find the right strapping equipment. Depending on whether you need to strap hundreds of packages as often as daily, you can also ask yourself how big the packages are in general or how much they weigh. How heavy are they, or are the products fragile by Any chance? Another question to ask. What type of operation are you running: manual, semi-automatic, or automatic? All these questions will get you to the kind of strapping to invest in.
Advantages of Auto Strapping Machines
Efficiency
The auto strapping machines are developed to make the strapping process faster and take less time per package. Compared to strapping by hand or utilizing semi-automatic machines, auto machines can strap quickly and autonomously a high volume of strappings. This faster rate enables businesses to process many packages in a short period, resulting in additional throughput and productivity. This advantage is especially relevant to companies with large distribution volumes because it means they can make deliveries faster and create better customer conditions.
Consistency
Notable as well is the auto strapping machines’ characteristic of always having the same tension and quality of seal. Applying the manual straps is straightforward, but doing it perfectly requires care. Firstly, if you don’t apply enough tension, the straps become practically pointless because they can easily slip off the package. On the other end of the spectrum, if you apply too much tension, you’re likely to rip the contents apart.
The auto strapping machine ensures that the tension is always the same with every strap. The outcome is drastically fewer packages are lost while they are being shipped due to opening. Thus, the recipient of the packages will certainly experience the positive impacts – such a business probably need not fear many complaints about damaged products and returned orders.
Labor Savings
By automating the strapping, the employees’ labor component will decrease significantly, allowing staff to shift attention to more strategic areas of the business. Improved safety in the workplace is an added advantage of the solution. Based on industrial practice, manual strapping is associated with repetitive strain injuries, and workers are more likely to make mistakes due to fatigue. As a result, the level of injury and production downtime increases. Moreover, businesses may reallocate workers and reduce labor components. Thus, labor costs can also decrease.
Versatility
All the above machines are versatile because you can adjust them to serve alternative wrapping and packaging functions specifically. You can easily modify most of them to use alternative package sizes, while others can use different types of straps. A majority can effectively handle polypropylene strapping, while others can handle polyester strapping of alternative sizes.
This indicates that once a business acquires a stapling machine, it can use it for different products and packages, rather than needing to purchase other machines. This helps in reducing the acquisition cost and makes the packaging process simple. You can always get in touch with HM marketing services to learn more about this.
Key Features to Consider
Speed
Speed is the other primary factor that the buyer ought to consider when purchasing a strapping machine. Speed is measured in cycles per minute. In this case, cycle denotes the straps that the machine can make per minute. Alternatively, one may define it as the speed of the package you are working on. Depending on the package’s size you wish to work on, the speed of the machine corresponds.
A business setting frames the speed of the machine depending on the number of times one package is in a single day. The CPM ought to be high since the package is shortly strapped. A high CPM will help you select because you do not want to keep waiting for the machine to strap something. For instance, I would choose 30 CPM or something closely related to it since it straps faster, meaning one does not have to wait for long.
Strap Type and Size
Strapping machines come in various types, using several strap sizes and materials. Polypropylene and polyester are the most common materials for strapping. Polypropylene is a very lightweight and affordable strapping. It is ideal for form fill seals or medium usage packing sectors. Polyester is quite robust and muscular. As a result, it is one’s best bet for major packing or swaddling of weighty or bulky products.
Make sure the strapping machine you choose is designed for the specific type of strap and includes the necessary features. Workers benefit more from machines that accommodate different-sized straps, as they can easily adapt to changes in bundling capacity demands. As a result, they are excellent investments in the long term.
Ease of Use
Those are the features that facilitate the process, save time, and reduce downtime. First, the control panel should be user-friendly. It is better to choose a machine with a simple and comprehensible panel that does not require a lot of time to understand how it operates. This means that an operator will spend several minutes checking all of its options. Usability-friendly machines allow users to manage them without a problem and have a touch-screen that allows creating a strapping process in the manner you want. For example, indicator lamps help an operator find out and correct an error.
Durability and Reliability
In the final analysis, a good machine must be worth the investment for several years. This primarily depends on the circumstances and needs of the packaging facility. A start-up company can develop in various ways, but a successful business almost always involves steady, nearly spherical growth that you must maintain. When the facility functions easily, it becomes less difficult and costly to use the machine. Additionally, when you avoid interfering with the machine to prevent stopping or repair, its efficiency increases. Hence, the machine that repays the investment within an acceptable period is the most favorable alternative.
