Page 8 - MetalForming June 2010

TechUpdate A Better Way to Package Large, Ungainly Metal Parts
When faced with a 25-percent increase in orders, Ranch Hand Truck Accessories, Shiner, TX, a fabricator of grille guards, front-bumper replacements and other parts for trucks and SUVs, sought a more efficient and protective packaging process. A Lan-ringer horizontal stretch- wrapping machine from Lantec, Louisville, KY, proved the perfect machine for the job. Adding the machine to its packag- ing operations sliced Ranch Hands’ damaged-product returns in half, while reducing annual labor costs related to pur- chasing by nearly $19,000 and packaging costs a total of $25,000 per year.
The story begins in January 2006, when the company installed a new robotic powder-coating line that created a bot- tleneck in packaging, according to Greg Chumchal, Ranch Hand general manager. “We were hand packaging everything and even with six people working the pack- aging line, we couldn’t keep up,” Chum-
chal says. Grille guards
are large and oblong,
and weigh an average of
130 lb.; front bumper
replacements have sim-
ilar dimensions and
average 270 lb. Both
products proved chal-
lenging to wrap—the firm
was using foam-in-place
pads overwrapped with
two large kraft sheets
laminated with a spun-
wound polypropylene
liner. Kraft wrapping was held in place with hand-tied bailing twine.
The firm’s new packaging strategy uses scored corrugated sheets to hold the foam pads in place, followed by stretch wrap- ping with the Lan-ringer—an overwrap machine designed to wrap product that moves through the production process on a conveyor. The film-delivery system
mounts on a 40-, 60-, 75- or 90-in. ring through which the product passes, and Lantech’s patented Power-Thru convey- or enables wrapping the product and con- veyor simultaneously. The conveyor sup- ports the product through the wrap zone, allowing the stretch film to be applied with the proper containment force.
With wrapping completed, a cut-and-
6 METALFORMING / JUNE 2010
www.metalformingmagazine.com