Thinking Outside the Box Keeps Items Securely Inside the Carton

September 26, 2017

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The rapid growth of e-commerce has spurred equal growth in the packaging and shipping industries. A report from Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. estimated that Amazon.com shipped 608 million packages in 2013—an average of over 1.6 million per day, or 69,000 per hour. That’s a lot of cardboard boxes and packaging tape, two shipping elements that work in tandem to securely deliver carton contents.

Companies involved in e-commerce and consumer packaged goods have long faced a number of problems and inefficiencies, and many of these are a result of tape issues:

Material waste: This is usually due to poor adhesion between the tape and corrugated cardboard box. Suppliers usually respond by switching to a wider, thicker or heavier duty tape, or simply use more tape altogether to keep cartons closed. Tape that must be repeatedly re-adhered also leads to productivity and efficiency issues.
User safety: Safety comes into play at both ends of the packaging process: closing and opening cartons. Tape applicators traditionally have large, serrated blades capable of injuring an operator’s hand, sometimes seriously. When a carton arrives at its destination, a worker must use a box cutter or knife to open it – using a sharp instrument to open the carton poses an obvious risk to retail workers and others working with boxes.
Content security: Cartons are designed to protect their contents, but loose case seals caused by insufficient or poor tape application can lead to product damage, contamination and theft. Using a knife to open the carton can damage contents during the opening process. For example, a retailer receiving a shipment of designer clothes may lose thousands of dollars in damaged goods if an individual plunges a knife too deeply into a carton.
Productivity: In a high-pressure shipping environment, changing out a tape roll or tape applicator is a time-consuming process that results in downtime. Even if a tape roll change only takes two minutes, the downtime and wasted productivity add up to monetary losses. And if an operator tries to rush the change process, they risk making mistakes or even injury from the tape applicator’s blade.

Like companies that are shipping cartons, tape manufacturers have traditionally accepted these issues as harsh realities of the packaging industry. But Shurtape—a well-known tape manufacturer in Hickory, North Carolina—saw that safer, more efficient tape application was possible. They responded by developing the ShurSEAL® automated case sealing system.