It’s a wrap for manual processes

City Pipe & Supply is a pipe, valve and fitting distributor based in Odessa, Texas. In an effort to curb the risks of hand-wrapping pallets, the company installed an orbital stretch-wrapper that helped reduce workers’ compensation claims to zero.

The new wrapping system (TAB Industries) replaces the company’s manual method, which required two workers to wrap the load by hand while raised on a forklift. The two workers passed the film roll back and forth and tried to keep the products in place without tearing the film, knocking the product off the pallet, or bumping their heads working under the pallet.

“Nobody enjoyed doing this job, including me,” says Charlie Justice, vice president of City Pipe & Supply. “Now, everybody loves the wrapper and nobody wants to go back to wrapping by hand.”

The new equipment has eliminated cuts, scrapes and other reportable incidents that occurred in the packaging and shipping department. The orbital wrapper features patent-pending technology that wraps plastic film 360 degrees around and under the pallet and its load while raised on a forklift to create a sturdy, unitized load in less than one minute, even when wrapping City Pipe & Supply’s large, heavy and oddly shaped products for the oil and gas industry.

Justice purchased the model with an 80-inch wrapping ring for his busiest facility and has since purchased four more units with 80-inch and 100-inch wrapping rings to automate the process in other locations.

“They have eliminated injuries and turned a dangerous job into one that our people actually enjoy doing,” Justice says. “I would recommend it to anyone as an upgrade from wrapping pallets by hand.”