A better way to ship cherries to Japan One of the largest growers and exporters of cherries in the U.S. shipped thier product to Japan in corrugated boxes/lids for years... In Japan fresh cherries are a delicacy and are very valuable. It's not uncommon for them to sell for more than US$50.00/lb. Due to the cost and critical timing, entire planes (huge 747's) are chartered to ship the cherries at their peak season. The problem: Even when going by air, the precious fruit is susceptible to temperature changes. This is not to mention the cost of chartering a 747! The solution: Change the corrugated cherry box/lid to a molded foam box and lid. The main goals of the change were; to try to insulate the fruit from the environmental changes and to address the climbing freight costs. The Result: By working with a local university to make sure the new air-tight box still allowed the cherries to "breathe", the ideal foam density and wall thickness was derived. Fresh cherries emit gasses (like carbon dioxide) and actually intake oxygen. So the box and lid needed to be thin enough to allow gaseous exchange and still strong enough to be stacked 8 layers high on an LD3 (airline) pallet.
By switching to molded foam the packaging container weight reduction was dramatic. How dramatic...? When you ship things like fruit, and are chartering a whole plane, you pay for freight on everything. Not only the fruit itself, but also the packaging, pallets, labels, etc... etc... The weight reduction was such that the freight savings cut the cost of the packaging by nearly half! The old corrugated box and cost $.75. The new foam box and lid cost $.90. That's an increase of 20%... However, the freight bill went down enough to equate to a $.50/box and lid reduction! The packaging costs mentioned here are just examples, but the ratios are actual. The bottom line: By spending the time to understand the total cost of packaging, taking into consideration things like outbound freight costs, in plant (our customers plant) handling and the unique variables of what we're shipping, we were able to design a package that: - Lowered the "real cost" of the packaging by half !
- Increased the quality of what was being shipped.
- Gave our customer a leg-up on their competitors.
There are more stories like this... There's one at a leading computer manufacturer, another at a hardware producer of banking equipment and on and on...
As oil/energy prices climb, putting price pressure on many facets of our customers business and at the same time "direct ship" models are striving to drive cost out of the old: marketing > engineering > manufacturing > procurement > logistics - "silo" approach Foam Fabricators Breakthrough Program is designed to engage with strategic customers to target structural cost reductions, like in the cherry box/lid example. It's about working smarter and together, not just harder. We can help.
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