A drum is a cylindrical shipping container used for shipping bulk cargo. Drums can be made of steel, dense paperboard, or plastic, and are generally used for the transportation and storage of liquids and powders. Drums are often stackable, and have dimensions designed for efficient warehouse and logistics use. This type of packaging is frequently certified for transporting dangerous goods. Proper shipment requires the drum to comply with all applicable regulations.
A pallet is a flat transport structure, which supports goods in a stable fashion while being lifted by a forklift, a pallet jack, a front loader, a jacking device, or an erect crane. A pallet is the structural foundation of a unit load, which allows handling and storage efficiencies. Goods or shipping containers are often placed on a pallet secured with strapping, stretch wrap or shrink wrap and shipped. Since its invention in the twentieth century, its use has dramatically supplanted older forms of crating like the wooden box and the wooden barrel, as it works well with modern packaging like corrugated boxes and intermodal containers commonly used for bulk shipping.
Shrink wrap, also shrink film, is a material made up of polymer plastic film. When heat is applied, it shrinks tightly over whatever it is covering. Heat can be applied with a handheld heat gun, or the product and film can pass through a heat tunnel on a conveyor.
Slip sheets are thin, pallet-sized sheets made of plastic, heavy laminated kraft paperboard, or corrugated fiberboard and are used in commercial shipping, replacing traditional wooden pallets. The unit load is usually stretch wrapped or shrink wrapped for stability.
Paper pallets, or ecopallets, are shipping or display pallets made from paperboard.
A pallet inverter or pile turner is a machine that is used to turn over full pallet loads of packages or products. The term pallet inverter is also used to cover machines that turn the palletised load through 90 degrees only.
Package pilferage is the theft of part of the contents of a package. It may also include theft of the contents but leaving the package, perhaps resealed with bogus contents. Small packages can be pilfered from a larger package such as a shipping container. Broader and related aspects of package theft may include taking the entire package, pallet load, truck load, shoplifting, etc. The theft may take place at any point in the parcel's journey from source to destination, including theft by rogue logistics employees and customs agents in international mail scenarios.
A bulk box, also known as a bulk bin, skid box, pallet box, bin box, gaylord, or octabin is a pallet-size box used for storage and shipping of bulk quantities.
Stretch wrap or stretch film is a highly stretchable plastic film that is wrapped around items. The elastic recovery keeps the items tightly bound. In contrast, shrink wrap is applied loosely around an item and shrinks tightly with heat. While it is visually similar to plastic food wrap it is not usually made of material rated as safe for food contact.
The term unit load refers to the size of an assemblage into which a number of individual items are combined for ease of storage and handling, for example a pallet load represents a unit load which can be moved easily with a pallet jack or forklift truck, or a container load represents a unit for shipping purposes. A unit load can be packed tightly into a warehouse rack, intermodal container, truck or boxcars, yet can be easily broken apart at a distribution point, usually a distribution center, wholesaler, or retail store for sale to consumers or for use.
A palletizer or palletiser is a machine which provides automatic means for stacking cases of goods or products onto a pallet.
Corrugated box design is the process of matching design factors for corrugated fiberboard boxes with the functional physical, processing and end-use requirements. Packaging engineers work to meet the performance requirements of a box while controlling total costs throughout the system.
Plastic film is a thin continuous polymeric material. Thicker plastic material is often called a "sheet". These thin plastic membranes are used to separate areas or volumes, to hold items, to act as barriers, or as printable surfaces.
ITW Mima Packaging Systems is the European marketing division of ITW's Specialty Systems businesses, manufacturing fully automatic stretch wrapping machines in Finland, semi-automatic and automatic machines in Bulgaria and manufacturing film in Belgium and Ireland.
Extended core stretch wrappers are rolls of stretch film that have their internal core extended beyond their film roll creating a handle by which film can be wrapped.
Turntable stretch wrappers are a type of automatic and semi-automatic stretch wrapping system. A load is placed on a turntable, which rotates relative to the film roll, which is housed in a carriage attached to a vertical "mast" on which it may move up and down. In the simplest turntable systems, stretch is achieved by rotating the load at a speed in which the take-up demand on the load surface is faster than the rate at which the film is allowed to be fed, being limited by a brake system.
Shelf-ready packaging (SRP) and retail-ready packaging (RRP) refers to the packaging of a product so that it is delivered to a retailer in packaging which is optimized for efficient stocking and sale.
Packaging machinery is used throughout all packaging operations, involving primary packages to distribution packs. This includes many packaging processes: fabrication, cleaning, filling, sealing, combining, labeling, overwrapping, palletizing.
Luxury and specialty packaging is the design, research, development, and manufacturing of packaging, displays, and for luxury brands. The packaging of a luxury product is part of the brand’s image and research shows consumers are willing to spend more on products if the packaging looks appealing and luxurious.
Security tape is a type of adhesive tape used to help reduce shipping losses due to pilfering and theft. It helps reduce tampering or product adulteration. Often it is a pressure sensitive tape or label with special tamper resistant or tamper evident features. It can be used as a ‘’security seal’’ in addition to a container closure or can be used as a security label. They are sometimes used as or with authentication products and can be an anti-pilferage seal.
