Packaging Science… not for the faint of heart

Posted by For Inventors at 27 April, 2007, 6:26 pm

I’m baaaaack!!! First thing’s first… Got a no go from Oprah/QVC. I am REALLY REALLY fine and a little relieved. I was not “there” yet. I have so much still to do before I’m ready to play with the big dogs and I know it. About the packaging experience; it was such a great time! I had a friend go with me, so we made it a gal’s road trip. We saw the final presentations for the class (there were 4 industry sponsors including me) and everyone did so well….?but my team made a small?miscalculation. Okay, if you don’t want a lesson in packaging science 101, don’t read any further because it’s about to get complicated. As usual, I’ll try to nutshell this, but it’s gonna be hard. Packaging Science 101: You have your primary packaging which is the packaging your product is in. Then you have your tertiary packaging or the “carton” or shipping packaging that your primary packaging which contains your product is in. When developing your packaging you need to think about maximizing space for the most cost effective transportation. In my case, my product will be coming from China, so transportation costs are REALLY important. A standard shipping pallet is 40×48 inches. To minimize damage you do not want any overhang, so ideally your pallet full of cartons needs to fit neatly on a pallet and be able to be stacked 2 high in a shipping container or 18 wheeler tractor trailer (which hauls the shipping container). Aesthetically, they developed a FANTASTIC primary packaging for Grill Charmsâ„¢. LOVE IT!!! They did my pallet layout such that 190 cartons could fit perfectly on the 40×48 shipping pallet. In my shipping or tertiary cartons, they designed my primary packaging so that 12 would fit PERFECTLY into my shipping carton. They left out 1 small detail… there needs to be “headspace” in the shipping carton. (Headspace, is the area of empty space between your product/primary packaging and the top or ceiling of the tertiary packaging) There is some fancy dancy formula to figure out what that number should be… mine should be ? of an inch and they did not factor this into the equation. The headspace somehow makes the entire pallet perform better on compression tests. (right amount of headspace=less crushing) Aaaaagggghhhhh!!! Okay, so you see my dilemma… If I make the tertiary packaging ? inch bigger to allow for headspace, then it will not fit on the 40×48 pallet doubt stacked and there will be more likelihood for damage, so the pallet layout and number of cartons per pallet needs to be completely reconfigured. Another option is to make my primary package shorter. Well, that sounds all easy breezy, but when you see the packaging “unfolded” in its flat form you notice that changing 1 dimension on the finished box, pretty much means changing all of the dimensions on the dye. If you quit reading about 30 seconds into this I DON’T BLAME YOU! If you didn’t and have stuck with me…thank you, but… ARE YOU NUTS??!!! I’ve got an email into the students and the professor as there was nothing they could do at the banquet/presentation so hopefully it won’t be that big of a deal. We shall see how it all turns out. (Come to find out later… the students where fine, the problem is NOT a problem YIPEE!!!)

Now for the mommy guilt… when I got home today from being away from the family for a day I was so excited to see everyone and wanted to have some special family time, so my husband and I took the kiddies to a park to play. Instead of being 100% into my girls and their fantastic accomplishments of hanging on the money bars without me holding on and sliding down the slide on their tummies, as much as I tried to be completely in the moment with them, my mind kept wandering to PACKAGING! Then the guilt of me thinking about packaging overtook the though of packaging and I had to give myself a big ol’reality check right then and there by the twisty slide. This problem will be solved and forgotten in a blink of an eye, and in almost that same blink, those moments at the playground will be gone too… no more thoughts of packaging on the playground!!!

Leslie Haywood, Founder and President of Charmed Life Products, Inventor of Grill Charmsâ„¢? www.grillcharms.com

Category : The Journey of Grill Charms!

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