Opportunity in the packaging department

There’s an old maxim—when one door closes another one opens. This was very true for a company in Reading, Pa. In 2008, Tom Brizek’s door business lost a major customer. Most people those days might have gone out of business, but not Brizek. He was paid only on commission and did not have to pay upfront for inventory. That was actually an advantage.

Instead of withdrawing, he decided to double his storage capacity for stocking a line of hollow steel doors and frames for schools, hospitals and offices. And, his business doubled. He doubled his capacity again, and the business followed. Clearly, Brizek offered what others wanted. But not everything.

As the middle man between the door manufacturer and his customers (door distributors who sold to contractors), Brizek had to protect and ship the doors. That required wrapping each door by hand. Not exactly a fast process nor one that sufficiently protected doors in transit. Customers noticed and something had to change.

Fortunately, Brizek noticed local farmers wrapping hay bales with orbital wrappers. Unfortunately, the $40,000 price tag was way beyond what Brizek’s door business could handle. So, he did the next best thing: He built his own in the fab shop that was his primary business before doors.

Almost immediately, his customers noticed that doors arrived consistently packaged and undamaged. Not only did his damage claims drop precipitously, but so did his worker comp claims on the wrapping line. There’s a win/win. But, the story was about to get even better.

While Brizek shipped basic doors to his distributors, they did value-add work that required unwrapping the doors. Then, they had to wrap the finished assembly for shipment to contractors. That’s when they started asking if Brizek could build orbital wrappers for them. And, a new business was born. Today, TAB Industries builds its orbital wrapping systems for a range of parts that come in odd shapes and long lengths. “These are ones that a turntable style wrapper can’t handle,” explains Brizek.

As the photo shows, palletized parts sitting on the tines of a lift truck are presented to the wrapping ring where the stretch wrap is applied automatically. The driver never has to get off the truck or transfer the load until it is delivered to the shipping department. In one 360-degree wrap, the entire load is secured and unitized without banding, boxing or strapping in less than one minute.

As Brizek explains, the Tab Wrapper Tornado increases throughput in the packaging department as it reduces the footprint needed there. “Packaging departments of three people can typically cut back to just one person,” says Brizek.

At electrical parts supplier Monti Inc., plant manager Nick LaVigne uses the wrapper to protect work-in-process. Parts often sit on a shelf for weeks before needed. Stretch wrapping them “reduces oxidation and cross contamination as well damage during transport in the plant,” he says.