1. Assessment

What to expect

After a consultation with a Y.G. representative, you will receive an assessment form that helps us better understand the specifics of your products, packaging, and distribution environment. This form can be completed by a member of your organization, or we can collect the necessary information on site. Completing the assessment form is the greatest commitment we ask for from you – the rest of the process is carried out by us.

Acme Foods’ assessment

Acme Foods was able to complete the assessment form without assistance from a Y.G. specialist, providing the following information about their current operations:

Product

The product being shipped is soup, divided into cylindrical steel cans measuring 6″x5″ and weighing 1.175 pounds each. Each can of soup costs an average of $1.10 to produce. The cans are load-bearing. 42 million cans of soup leave the Anytown facility annually.

Secondary packaging

The secondary packaging is a corrugated RSC shipper which holds six cans of soup. It is made from 32 ECT C-flute board. When loaded, each case weighs 7.25 pounds. Seven million of these cases leave the Anytown facility each year bound for grocery distributors across the country, generating 1.4 million pounds of packaging waste.

Tertiary packaging

The tertiary packaging is a 48″x40″ non-reversible two-way entry stringer pallet made from a mixture of eastern hardwoods. Each pallet weighs roughly 22 pounds. The pallet holds 70 cases of soup (420 cans), stacked in an interlocking pattern. Stretch wrap is used to stabilize the load. Acme’s Anytown soup plant consumes 100,000 of these pallets each year.

Distribution

Unit loads at the Anytown facility are floor stacked 2 high and moved by forklift into 53′ dry trailers for distribution. One trailer holds 48 unit loads, collectively moving just over 20,000 cans of soup. The average truck transportation distance is 350 miles. The conditions of the handling and service environment are average.

Next steps

After a baseline assessment is made, Y.G. Packaging Solutions will use the provided information to model your packaging systems using various engineering tools, identify areas for optimization, and redesign each component of the packaging system to reduce overall costs and environmental impacts.