Industrial Processes and How They Work

If you are the purchasing manager of a warehouse facility, you know the importance of packaging and preparing pallets so they can be shipped safely and arrive at their destinations fully intact and without any damage to the materials and items contained inside the packaging. The safest way to ensure that boxes and packages stay on pallets during shipment is by wrapping them with film that is stretched over the packages to secure them to the pallet.

The equipment that performs this task is called turntable wrapping equipment. Here's what to look for when ordering this equipment.

Mobile or Stationary

One of the first things to determine is if the facility needs turntable wrapping equipment that is mobile or stationary. If you have rollers or conveyor belts that handle the packages, placing a stationary turntable at the end will be ideal. If pallets are stacked and packed by hand at various places in and out of the warehouse, a mobile turntable would work best. 

Compatibility With Material Handling Equipment

When choosing which equipment to purchase for your warehouse, you'll also need to consider the types of material handling equipment you have and if they are compatible with the various turntable wrapping equipment you are considering purchasing. To do this, you'll need to look at the specifications of the wrapping equipment, which will list which types of material handling equipment are compatible with the specific turntable. 

Number of Programs 

Turntable wrapping equipment can have just a simple setting or multiple settings. If the pallets being wrapped in your warehouse are all the same size and weight, you can easily buy the equipment that has only a basic setting or program to wrap the pallets and the contents of the pallets. If, however, the pallets that are wrapped in your facility differ, buy turntable wrapping equipment that provides multiple programs so the employees can select the method of wrapping for each pallet or group of pallets. 

Ability to Resupply the Stretch Film

Since the stretch film is an important component of wrapping pallets, you'll want to determine how readily available the stretch film is to resupply as well as how easy it is to keep the stretch film in stock in your facility. Does the seller of the wrapping equipment also sell the stretch film? If so, do they provide automatic deliveries of the stretch film or will you need to continually manually reorder the stretch film in the future? Also, ask the supplier if there are compatible rolls that can be used instead, in case there is a problem with the supply chain. 

Contact a manufacturer near you for more information about how to buy turntable wrapping equipment.