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Customers love new baby 'bundles'

Forced by customer complaints, a strapping system was replaced by a new shrink bundling system so repackager Sassy Baby Products could cut losses from damage and missing containers.

In the shipping area at Sassy Baby (below), a worker loads packs into a shrink bundling system. When the order emerges from the
In the shipping area at Sassy Baby (below), a worker loads packs into a shrink bundling system. When the order emerges from the

When unitizing cartons of product with a strapper proved costly and inefficient, management at Sassy Baby Products knew a new system was in order. Customers were complaining about receiving damaged merchandise or orders that were short a box or two.

So in March of ’97, the Grand Rapids, MI, marketer of products for babies installed a Packmatic (Chicago, IL) shrink bundler. The new equipment saves Sassy Baby money while meeting customer needs and, as a bonus, employees like the new process better.

Sassy Baby buys baby products from around the world and repackages them, generally in blister packs, for shipment to retailers throughout the U.S. Primary packs are loaded into corrugated shippers in various quantities.

In the past, when a retailer placed an order, Sassy Baby workers pulled cases from storage and unitized each store’s order with up to eight straps. A shipping label identified each unitized load. While this worked reasonably well, there were several problems. For one thing, case sizes vary, and unlike carton sizes, couldn’t be strapped together, says Tom Winters, purchasing manager at Sassy Baby. So the company ended up sending two or more strapped bundles of product to a store. This increased shipping costs because UPS charges a base rate for each unit shipped.

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