There is nothing worse than wrapping a pallet of oddly shaped heavy products with stretch film that you thought was tough enough only to find multiple collapsed pallets upon arrival of the shipment.
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This situation often results in damaged products, longer unloading times, safety hazards, and timely clean-ups.
And, it only adds insult to injury when your client asks why you used a sub-par stretch film to palletize their shipments.
Showing up with poor stretch film is akin to arriving with egg on your face.
However, when life gives you eggs, it's time to make an omelet. But how can you reduce the chances of finding yourself in this predicament?
Is there a stretch film that can meet the demands of containing and palletizing heavy-duty products while decreasing the chance of the events listed above?
The short answer is yes.
Thanks to new technological advancements in stretch film production and formulations, there is a remedy to this issue.
And that remedy is Alliance Plastics&#; brand-new reinforced titanium stretch film. But, how can this film help you to conquer your most formidable product palletizing challenges?
With the information here, you will have a new solution to the problems associated with containing the heaviest, most oddball products for shipping and transportation.
Titanium Strength Stretch Film? Really?
When you hear the word &#;titanium,&#; the first things to pop into your mind probably include items such as heavy-duty machinery, industrial equipment, and dangerous sentient robots.
But, the last thing you would probably think of is stretch film. I mean, that&#;s made out of plastic, right?
This is true, however, thanks to the hard work of the Alliance Plastics team, you can now wrap your pallets with Steelflex Titanium Power Band stretch film!
To be fair, this film is, in fact, still made from plastic. However, it is reinforced with the patented Steelflex Titanium Power Band Technology.
This makes securing even the heaviest and most obscure loads easy as pie!
If you cannot contain and palletize a load with Alliance Plastics&#; new reinforced titanium stretch film, it can&#;t be wrapped. Period.
How Does Reinforced Titanium Stretch Film Work?
Think of it this way, If stretch wrap and strapping had a baby, it would be Reinforced Titanium Stretch Film! This exciting new stretch film is a fantastic wrap that can actually replace stretch film AND strapping.
Thanks to Steelflex Titanium Power Bands augmented throughout the film, you can wrap even the heaviest loads without breaking a sweat!
The film looks and feels similar to regular stretch film but features unparalleled strength when compared to the leading brand of stretch film.
Cinder blocks? Sure thing! Bricks? No problem? Heavy equipment? Bring it on! Whatever heavy products you are looking to secure, reinforced titanium stretch film is ready for the job.
Regardless of whether you are wrapping your loads by hand or using an automated stretch wrapping machine, reinforced titanium stretch film is available in both variations.
And you can get the same material for packaging tapes and corner boards.
With these reinforced Steelflex Titanium Power Band materials, you will be able to package loads that were, until now, impossible to contain!
How much money can you save with a stretch wrapper?
What Are The Benefits Of Reinforced Titanium Stretch Film?
Brute strength is just the beginning. When using this ultra-strong stretch film, you will find various other benefits, including:
No matter the load you are looking to prepare, reinforced titanium stretch film is your go-to film for all your heavier, previously problematic products.
To further illustrate the value of this amazing new stretch film, let's take a look at a hypothetical situation.
Eopac Machinery supply professional and honest service.
By replacing a pallet load that uses 4 straps plus stretch wrap with reinforced titanium stretch film, 2 fantastic things happen. First, you eliminate the cost of 4 plastic straps, which reduces the cost of wrapping materials by about 40-50%.
By eliminating the time to put 4 straps on manually, you can save, on average, 12 minutes per pallet.
At $20 per hour for labor, that is $4.00 per pallet in labor savings. Put together, that is about $6 per pallet load of savings.
So, with only 166,666 loads, you can save one million dollars!
What Are The Additional Features Of Reinforced Titanium Stretch Film?
While this film is the toughest product on the market to date, there is more to it than just its raw power. Additional features for this product include:
There is currently no other film on the market that can compete with reinforced titanium stretch film when you need the most robust film possible.
What Size Stretch Films Are Available?
Regardless of the size and weight of the products you are looking to palletize, chances are, there is a reinforced titanium stretch film that is right for you!
Where Can You Buy Reinforced Titanium Stretch Film?
This film is available exclusively via packaging distributors through which Alliance plastics sells their films.
With that being said, it would be silly for us not to mention that you can order this fantastic new film directly from Industrial Packaging.
If you are interested in getting pricing for this product, please contact one of our packaging specialists today.
They will be able to help you select the proper reinforced titanium stretch film for your needs, all while providing some of the best lead times in the industry!
The simple answer is that quality machine stretch film typically stretches 3x or more.
The right answer is&#;.it depends on the stretch film, the machine and most importantly, your product, loads and goals.
Here&#;s the full answer
Confusing stretch with tight & secure
Sometimes you&#;ll hear people refer to the plastic that they wrap around pallets as shrink film. You know what they mean of course, but the proper name is stretch film for a reason.
Modern stretch film formulations are made to stretch &#; but maybe not for the reason, or to the extent that you imagine.
When Pat Lancaster invented the first stretch wrapper in he used a 60&#; roll of plastic film designed for use in dry cleaning facilities. The idea was to lay the film against the rotating pallet and rely on a core brake to slow the film enough that it stretch a bit and compressed the load as a result. T
hat invention rapidly evolved to the spiral wrap so popular today. The polyethylene stretch film we rely on now rapidly followed.
That&#;s essentially the same process repeated thousands of times each day as workers hand wrap loads with 12 & 18&#; wide rolls of hand stretch film.
And most importantly, load security is determined by containment force &#; or wrap force X film layers. It turns out that stretching isn&#;t a factor.
Dollars & cents
Stretching the film (or, more precisely, pre-stretching the film before it leaves the film delivery system) is an economy measure. Pre-stretching film is what made stretch wrapping affordable and opened up the stretch wrapping and stretch film industries that we know today.
Pre-stretching film saves money.
Common pre-stretch percentages (which are typically determined by a set of gears in a wrappers pre-stretch carriage) range from 150-300%. That means that every linear foot of film coming off a roll represents 2.5 to 4 feet of film on the load.
That&#;s some pretty compelling savings! In fact, most companies buy their first pallet wrapper with a simple film savings calculation.
More is better, right?
To a point. There are more factors to consider here.
Film attributes include:
- gauge
- formulation
- puncture & tear resistance
- roll length
- price/lb
Load attributes include:
- weight
- load configuration (like a cube or uneven)
- need to lock load to pallet
- inboard or outboard (product is smaller or larger than the pallet respectively)
- containment force which is a product of wrap force (tension) and revolutions
Best practices for determining the optimal film usage include:
- Establish standards for the load: containment force value, load-to-pallet bond, no long or dragging film tails. They maximize the probability of safe shipment.
- Determine settings: These are the film choices (quality, gauge and price) and machine adjustments (pre-stretch percentage, wrap force, top and bottom wrap counts, film delivery system speed up and down, film overlap, etc.) that ensure the standards are achieved.
- Establish a feedback loop that ensures the standards are maintained,
The reality is that thinner film doesn&#;t always result in a net film savings! Decreases in film thickness result in a loss of wrap force because of increased film breaks. Because it&#;s notoriously hard and time consuming to find the root causes of film breaks, operators frequently get rid of them simply by decreasing the wrap force until they stop. Consequently, more film layers must be applied to recover and maintain containment force that&#;s lost and film consumption increases.
Every load does not have an optimal wrap pattern. It does, however, have an optimal containment force. If my load needs 10 pounds of containment force, I can get it by using a thin film and applying lots of layers or I can use a thick film and apply fewer layers &#; the resulting containment force can be the same but the wrap patterns and throughput rates can differ significantly.
Film spec is not the load spec
Most machine films are engineered today to comfortable pre-stretch to 300%. If you stretch further you may experience more breaks &#; particularly on corners of loads where tension increases with most film delivery systems.
Technology will let you stretch your budget figuratively and literally. The risk is that savings achieved through down gauging and extreme pre-stretch may be lost to the damaged product which can result when containment force is adversely impacted by related film changes.
The real question companies need to answer is &#;What containment force is required to safely ship my load?&#; From there, local experts familiar with films and machines can design the right combination and establish parameters to ensure loads are properly wrapped.
The short answer to how much does stretch wrap stretch? Stretch film will stretch as much as your machine is designed to stretch it. 300% is not unusual &#; but may not be the best answer. Stretching the film budget in one direction, without considering other impacts, can cost far more in product damage than is saved on film. Remember, there is balance between thick stretch films applied with high wrap force and few film layers versus thin films applied with low wrap force and more film layers.
Wondering how much pre-stretching your stretch film could save you?
Good question. It&#;s one of the classic justifications for a new stretch wrapper. We&#;ve got a free calculator available for download that you can use to estimate savings. Grab your copy here.
And don&#;t forget other considerations. In high speed wrapping applications, overstretching film can lead to frustrating and costly down-time through film breaks. This is especially common on irregular loads (like distribution centers) and corners of loads if the machine doesn&#;t adjust the way it feeds film.
Click here to see the Film Cost Savings Calculator.
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This post was published on June 28, and updated on November 9, .
How much does stretch wrapping stretch? Is more better? Depends on the stretch film, the machine and most importantly, your product, loads and goals.
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