Solution streamlines shipping process and saves 15 percent in labor.

Wind Mill Woodworking, which manufactures quality slatwall products in Sheboygan Falls, Wis., wanted to cut its shipping costs.

“We were spending quite a bit of time packaging our products,” said Tim Keenan, materials manager for the 60-employee company. “We needed to find some quicker means that didn’t involve automation, which didn’t make much sense given the size of our company.”

Laminations has been part of Wind Mill’s shipping process for the past five years, supplying it with VBoard® edge protectors for its palletized loads. Wind Mill employees use VBoard in a standard product application on the vertical edges of loads. Until recently, they also were cutting four pieces of VBoard for use on the top of loads, holding the pieces together with tape until the loads were stretch-wrapped and banded.

The top-of-load process worked but it was not efficient in terms of material and time. The solution was found in another Laminations product – PF PalletTop.

Made by riveting together two pieces of notched VBoard, patented PF PalletTop unfolds easily to form a sturdy square or rectangular shape that fits standard or custom-sized tops, sides, or bottoms of palletized loads. It also holds the vertical VBoards firmly in place for ease in unitizing, stretch-wrapping and banding loads.

“Pam Schroeder [Laminations account manager] was the one who proposed PF PalletTop as the solution,” said Diane Krostag, vice president of Bell Tape, which distributes Laminations products to Wind Mill. But Schroeder said the solution was a team effort that began with Bell Tape.

“Laminations is fortunate to have a distributor like Bell Tape supplying Wind Mill,” said Schroeder. “The distributor’s salesperson is always willing to involve Laminations on a factory call.”

PF PalletTop has streamlined Wind Mill’s shipping process. The pre-formed laminated paperboard pallet tops can be unfolded and applied to the loads with one motion. And the tops don’t have to be held in place, a feature that makes them perfect for stretch wrapping operations.

“We’ve seen a savings of about 15 percent in the labor time it takes to package these units for shipping,” Keenan said. “That has more than offset the cost of the added materials. We have actually reduced our packaging time, increased our production and saved money.”

PF PalletTop has a number of advantages over other methods of load stabilization and protection. The paperboard pallet tops are sturdy, but much lighter and less bulky than wood and therefore less costly to ship. They come in a variety of caliper and leg lengths, can be custom-sized to fit non-standard load dimensions.

Keenan said his company has experienced additional marketing benefits by having Laminations imprint the PF PalletTop with the Wind Mill logo in two colors along with its slogan. Many of Wind Mill’s customers reuse the Wind Mill-imprinted PF PalletTops on their own products. “We get a lot of additional branding exposure out of that,” he said.