Bundled Product Solution

VBoard®, PF PalletTop® and EPS foam team up to deliver savings

A combined application of Laminations products and its problem-solving expertise has streamlined costs and improved packaging protection for a company that makes and ships specialty refrigerators.

A Midwest company, whose product line includes refrigerators and other equipment for the manufacturers of boats, RVs and mobile homes, was looking for a better, more cost-effective way to package and ship their refrigerator units throughout the United States and Mexico.

Laminations provided the solution.

“About three months ago, the customer brought the problem to one of my major distributor partners, who brought it to me,” said Suzanne von Valtier, Laminations Account Manager. “I quickly realized that this is exactly the kind of puzzle that Todd Hainer is good at solving,” she said, referring to Laminations’ Packaging Solutions Engineer.

The protective packaging challenge centered on the 50,000 specialty refrigerators per year the company ships on its own trucks and also by common carrier. There are six different versions of the units, which range in height from 40 inches to 70 inches. Footprints vary with the largest being 27 inches square.

“They were packaging the refrigerators with pieces of wood and four different profiles of EPS foam cushioning in a process that was time consuming and relatively expensive,” von Valtier said.

The Laminations solution uses pieces of EPS foam on the corners and vertical edges. The foam pieces are held in place by VBoard, while PF PalletTop protectors at the top and bottom of the units secure the VBoard and foam and also provides additional edge protection.

The result has been a savings in material by cutting in half the number of foam profiles needed and by replacing the wood pieces with VBoard. The use of VBoard and PF PalletTops produced additional savings in labor since the new protective packaging is easier and quicker to assemble.

Added value comes from the ability to print handling instructions as well as a one-color imprint of the company’s logo on the VBoard.

“Our solution also offers better protection and a more professional-looking finished package than existed previously,” von Valtier said.

BEFORE: Four different
EPS foam pieces were
used with wood, resulting
in an expensive, time-
consuming packaging process.

AFTER: The VBoard,
EPS foam and PF PalletTops
solution substantially reduced
material needed and simplified the assembly process, leading to significant cost and labor
savings.

A custom combination of
VBoard and EPS foam
provides solid cushioning for
the edges of the refrigerators.