•Invariably, logistical considerations alone cannot fully dominate package design.
•The ideal package for material handling and transportation would be a perfect cube having equal length, depth, and width with maximum possible density but such a package does not exist in practice.
•Thus, logistical requirements should be evaluated along with manufacturing, marketing, and product design considerations when standardizing master cartons.
•Another critical issue to be considered in package design is to determine the degree of protection required to cope with the anticipated physical and climatic environments.
•The package design and material should combine to achieve the desired level of protection without incurring the expense of overprotection.
•In most cases the cost of absolute protection will be prohibitive and therefore the package construction should be a proper blend of design and material.
•Three broad functions of packaging are
– Damage protection, Utility/ efficiency, and Communication.
•The susceptibility to damage of a given package is directly related to the environment in which it moves and is stored.
•Product fragility can be measured by product/package testing by means of shock and vibration equipment.
•If packaging requirements and cost are prohibitive, alternative product designs can be evaluated utilizing the same testing equipment.
•The end result is the determination of the exact packaging required to protect the product.
•During the logistical process, common causes of product damage are vibrations, impact,puncture, and compression.
•Stacking failure can also result in damage while the product is in storage.
•The potential physical damage of poor stacking ranges from surface scuffing and marring to complete product crushing, buckling and cracking.
•Typical methods of securing the packages are strapping, tie-downs, and use of various dunnage materials that limit vibrations and shock.
B. Efficiency/ Utilization
•Logistical operations are affected by packaging utility i.e. from truck loading and warehouse picking productivity to transportation and storage space utilization.
•Logistical activity output can be described in terms of packages, such as number of cartons loaded per hour into a trailer, number of cartons picked per hour in a warehouse or distribution centre.
•Material handling efficiency is also strongly influenced by the unitization of packages.
•An important part of packaging relating to storage and material handling is the concept of unitization.
•Unitization describes the physical grouping of master cartons into one restrained load for material handling or transport.
•Concept of containerization includes all forms of unitization, from taping two master cartons together to the use of specialized transpotation equipment.
•All types of containerization have the basic objective of increasing material handling efficiency.
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