ROI (Return On Investment) applied to Packaging Automation

The end of the packaging line is the last link in the production chain and is often not considered important in administrative calculation activities, forgetting that this last step is essential to successfully define a production line. Without it, goods cannot leave the company, travel safely to customers, and be delivered to them without tampering, missing, or damage.

Therefore, it is necessary to ensure that the entire packaging process is productive, effective and, most importantly, safe for end-of-line operators.

Relying solely on manual labor can be one of the reasons why your packaging line is not performing to its full potential.

End-of-line automation is a simple solution that, in addition to being effective, immediately intervenes positively on the management of company costs.

Many tend to underestimate this possibility and postpone considering it because they believe that the initial costs are high, but a careful verification of the ROI applied to packaging automation leads to consider this solution a valid, advantageous and intelligent investment.

What is Packaging Automation?

End-of-line packaging automation includes a wide variety of different possible solutions that align and regulate the different procedures that manage, apply or use systems for individual packaging. All types of automation are carefully designed to speed up the packaging process, deliver high-quality results, and improve workplace safety.

Given the multiplicity of possible solutions and/or needs, it is important to emphasize and highlight that regardless of how simple or complex the equipment that needs to be evaluated may be, each type of automation always generates an excellent ROI. Between labor savings, reduction of the use of materials, greater worker safety and total sustainability of the packaging (using WAT tape for packaging sealing) the ROI gives an excellent result.

For example, you can quickly check labor saving costs: industry statistics and operational audits indicate that in some cases, total packaging costs directly related to labor account for up to 58% of production costs.

On an operational reconstruction of comparison, it was recorded that an operator would use 14 uninterrupted hours to manually seal 2,500 packages; with an entry level manual taping machine (to keep initial costs as low as possible) the same result is achieved in just 4 hours where, in addition to the undoubted labor savings, it is also necessary to consider the considerable savings in consumables (with WAT tape a single strip guarantees the safe closure of the packaging) and the possibility of using the operator for other tasks.

In fact, the ROI of packaging automation is really interesting, so much so that, if well “built”, it impressively reduces the payback time of the investment; It also allows operators to focus on more engaging and fulfilling work that instantly results in better quality of work.

Packaging automation for operator health and safety

In any warehouse or production facility, maximum active and passive operator safety must always be ensured. Specifically, for example, some activities that accompany an entirely manual packaging line include the repeated execution of the same operations: regularly bending and stretching, sitting or standing in awkward positions, and lifting, pushing, or pulling objects.

Solutions that involve the use of an automated system eliminate most of these problems by avoiding the repetitiveness of exhausting movements for operators and allowing them to reduce the most strenuous manual tasks; On the other hand, they can program and use the packaging equipment while increasing their professionalism.

Limit material waste

It doesn’t take much effort to dwell on the manual closing of a box and check how much material is improperly used; In fact, it is enough to look around and it is difficult to find a package with a single strip of tape that guarantees its closure. This feedback immediately generates a mathematical consideration: with the manual closure of the packaging, whether you know exactly how much material is used daily or that there is no exact awareness of it, there is no doubt that by using automatic packaging equipment, the overall use of the same will be much, much less. In addition, with the use of WAT tape, you have the certainty of a guarantee of closure regardless of weather conditions, the type of cardboard and the presence or absence of dust on it because, by wetting, the tape is literally welded to the package, becoming a whole. Finally, it should be considered that, made in this way, the packaging can be disposed of in a single solution and consequently the personnel costs for the separation of the components and the correct disposal are cancelled.

An example that can best concretize the above is the result of a comparative test that recorded the use of over 6,500 m of plastic tape to manually close 3,000 packages: with a manually adjustable taping machine and single strip of WAT tape, only 1,400 m were needed.

Overall, packaging automation is undoubtedly more efficient and precise than what an operator can do manually, which means that much less material is used to achieve the same result. If you reduce the total amount of material used each day, while maintaining or increasing production, you save money mathematically. The ROI of packaging automation is undoubtedly important in business management; Despite having an initial cost that may seem high, automated packaging solutions combined with an appropriate use of consumables can, on balance, pay for themselves in a short operating period.

Different parts of EVi’s® organization collaborate on the development of new technologies, products, solutions and services to meet and meet the operational needs of Customers; If you are interested, we are available for any further information.

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