Rethinking the Box

When it comes to optimizing and automating your supply chain, don’t overlook the carton your product is shipped in — along with all of that empty space inside. It’s the last part of the pre-COVID B2B warehouse to escape modernization: the massive, cluttered storage area where the corrugated cardboard, boxcutters, polybag mailers, tape, packing peanuts, plastic air pillows and mailing labels are stored.

Most manufacturers and retailers order standard size, collapsed corrugate boxes and mailing envelopes for their fastest moving items, and fit the rest as best they can. Oversized or odd-shaped pieces in square boxes are full of air, crumpled paper and Styrofoam, as are the most popular small SKUs when the smaller boxes run out.

One fix is on-demand packaging — where software-driven equipment layered onto a warehouse management system cuts and configures a continuous feed of z-fold corrugate into right-sized boxes based on order dimensions. This is typically seen as nice to have, but low on the supply chain priority list.

But as the low-hanging fruit of last-mile optimization is picked, and companies hunt for small-but-mighty efficiency improvements that yield meaningful cost savings and sustainability benefits, they’re asking: How much scarce, costly warehouse square footage is eaten up by packaging inventory? How many more orders might fit on a truck if cartons were right-sized? How many truck trips might be eliminated? How much less fuel consumed? How much money saved in parcel freight charges? How many more orders could be filled by the same workforce in the same workday with less risk of damage?

“More and more companies are seeing this as mainstream,” explains Steve Larsen, vice president for global strategic partners and customer solutions with Salt Lake City on-demand packaging equipment provider Packsize. “They have a customer use-case and experience problem they need to solve, a sustainability story they need to tell, and regulation on the horizon to think about. Plus, freight carriers are running out of capacity; a big issue in recent years.”

Packaging Waste is Serious Business

Impacts from packaging inefficiency vary widely across sectors, says Packsize chief technology officer and executive vice president Brian McCarson. A winery with years invested in harvesting and fermenting grapes might worry more about broken bottles in transit; an e-retailer may worry abo…