Case Study - Supply Chain and Service

Car Accessories Pack

Brief:

The brief was to design a competitively priced solution that allows hand packing of the product at optimum speeds, whilst eliminating the need for excessive taping.

Design:

As the product is sold by mail order and distributed through the postal system, the previous plastic tube transit packs were arriving to the end user opened and with vary degrees of product damage, resulting in a high volume of customer returns and refunded transactions. It was important that the new design provided full protection of the product and would withstand transportation, arriving ready to unpack in perfect condition. The use of large amounts of tape was being implemented to help remedy the problem, but at a higher unit cost and drawn-out packing speeds.

The new design features semi auto erect side panels that once folded into position double up as air space buffer tabs allowing the absorption of any impact damage at the end of the pack. The design also features locking tabs to eliminate the need for excessive taping once closed.

Solution:

The solution has improved packing speeds by 70%. An innovative self-locking pack design has a single production process to keep the design competitively priced. The pack is delivered to the customer flat decreasing the amount of warehouse storage required when compared with tubes.

The design, which is made from recycled corrugated board and is 100% recyclable has huge environmental benefits when compared with the previous plastic tube solution.

The customer has improved efficiencies in packing times, response rate when processing customer orders and zero rate returns on all products using the new design. As a result of the design, the customer has initiated a transit pack review on the core products sold through it's mail order option.