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Equipment made for the shade

Rising demand for its Sun-Gard solar control window film made this Florida firm take a hard look at its packaging operation. Custom-built cartoning and case packing equipment was the answer.

Two picking arms, each equipped with seven vacuum cups, rotate to pick carton blanks from the magazine feed and place them in
Two picking arms, each equipped with seven vacuum cups, rotate to pick carton blanks from the magazine feed and place them in

Reining in labor costs through automation is always a good way to boost the bottom line. But at ITD Industries, which makes polyester solar control window film for home and auto applications, the move to automated packaging proved especially timely.

Shortly after the January '94 installation of its new equipment, the cost of polyester resin, its primary raw material, rose significantly. Thanks to the savings generated by using its custom-made packaging equipment, the St. Petersburg, FL, firm has been able to hold the line on pricing despite the increased material costs.

"It's unbelievable what's happened to the price of polyester," says Richard Kicak, national sales and marketing manager. "For-tunately, the new line helps us offset those costs."

Product packaged on the new line is sold primarily through do-it-yourself home centers and the automotive aftermarket. "The do-it-yourself business is a significant part of our growth, and until we automated, we just weren't able to cope with it properly," says vice president of operations Charles Bodanza.

Before the equipment arrived, a crew of workers loaded the rolls of film by hand into hand-erected cartons. They also labeled and manually packed the cases. Now the number of people involved in cartoning, labeling and case packing has been reduced by nearly 75%, and throughput per shift is 10 to 15% greater.

Also a big help is the redesigned carton supplied by Simkins (Marietta, GA). An 18-pt claycoated kraftback printed offset in five colors, it has new graphics that give it a more contemporary and appealing look. It also has a new hang tab. On the old carton, the hang tab protruded over the top flap. This caused problems when a hardware or home center elected not to hang the cartons from pegs, because the tab often got bent, which gave the cartons a shopworn look. On the new carton, a small perforation is made in the front and back panels up near the top of the carton. If a store chooses to display the cartons by hanging them from pegs, it's easy enough to do so. But if the cartons are displayed in a bin without pegs, bent hang tabs are no longer a problem.

Length of carton a challenge

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