9 options to enhance supply chain totes & line-side containers

Whether you are an established manufacturer with a well evolved supply chain and processes, or are only just looking to start sourcing line side containers and / or supply chain totes, one theme is likely to keep cropping up.

Efficiency.

Terms such as “lean manufacturing” and “six sigma” are frequently used by manufacturers, and are seen as a goal to aspire to.

The reason for this? Well, it is due to the fact that these methodologies have been proven to reduce costs and save time on a consistent basis.

Unfortunately, this is rarely easy to achieve. It means examining all aspects of your in plant processes (and supply chain), identifying small areas of improvement on a consistent basis. These small gains can eventually add up to create a significant impact on your business.

And with line side totes or stillages being a key part of your operations (and if they aren’t they should be), the use of these – and the totes themselves – should be optimised as far as possible.

So, when facing such challenges (which applies to varying degrees to virtually any manufacturer), how exactly can totes help?

Well, by sourcing a tote that is tailored to your specific working practices, environment, parts and components, it is possible to maintain and even improve manufacturing productivity and efficiency.

But what are the customisation options for line side containers (which can, also, be used when considering multi-trip packaging)?

The nine most common options are as follows:

• Custom Sizes
• Strength / Material thickness
• Anti-Static / Specialist properties
• Handles
• Lids
• Internal dividers
• Colours
• Print
• Collapsible

Please continue reading below for further details on these enhancements, and how they can be used to aid your manufacturing operations.

Usually, the answer lies in making efficient use of space. For example, if there is a large amount of empty space left in the tote, even when as many components as possible have been put inside, this is effectively wasting space on your factory floor.

It also makes transportation less efficient. If being handled manually, your staff are being paid to transport this empty space (and the tote itself is also likely to be heavier), whilst if the container will be placed in transit between manufacturing centres in your supply chain, the volumetric shipping charges you incur will also be higher.

If you have particularly large components, parts or products, or they are an unusual shape, then it may simply not be possible to find a line side or handling tote that is the correct size.

Effectively, using a custom sized line side tote enables you to make the movement of parts, storage by the side of the production line and transit between sites as efficient as possible.

This, in turn, reduces your costs and enables greater capacity (i.e. more different components can be stored together for easy retrieval).

Similarly to selecting a tote that is robust enough for the application it is to be used for, it is important to consider any other properties that may be required as well.

For example, if you are handling or transporting electronic components or parts (such as microchips, circuit boards or assemblies), then these can be prone to damage from static. This, in turn, can lead to components – or the finished products – being rejected or returned as faulty (with the associated costs incurred too).

The solution to this is using conductive or anti-static totes.

These can channel static around the outside of the container, keeping the contents safe.

However, it is not just conductive properties that your totes can be enhanced with.

There are flame resistant grades of material (useful if parts may be stored near sources of ignition for example), as well as VCI corrosion inhibitors (to prevent rust to metal parts in storage / transit).

The benefit of using totes with these properties is that it enhances the protection afforded to the contents, therefore reducing “written off” damaged parts and faulty products and in turn reducing your costs associated with these issues.

Easy and efficient movement of parts obviously has an impact on productivity (simply through less time handling / transporting them around your factory).

This is why it is nearly always important to consider the inclusion (and type) of handles.

Besides enabling easier movement, this can also aid health and safety, meaning that employees are less likely to be hurt through accidents or poor handling practices, and therefore less likely to be absent.

Moulded totes will usually offer integrated handles, whilst custom totes offer a selection of different styles and sizes which can be matched to the size / weight of the loaded tote as required.

Although left until quite late in this list, lids are actually a very important consideration for a number of reasons.

Attached lid containers (often referred to as ALCs due to their widespread use) protect the items within from dust and debris getting to them, and if airtight can also protect against moisture and water (particularly useful if part of the supply chain packaging that may be exposed to the elements).

A slightly less obvious benefit is that using lids can also stop staff from overloading totes (as the lids not shutting indicates the tote is too full), helping with health and safety and also eliminating the risk of damage to the components or totes themselves.

There are various lid options (including hinged, clip on and fully integrated, among many others), all of which can aid protection and / or security.

Whilst many companies will specify totes based on their brand colours (which admittedly is a very sensible thing to do), colour can also play an important part in productivity too.

For example, different colour totes can be used to differentiate between similar looking parts or components much more easily / quickly than reading labels etc.

Colours could also be used to distinguish between batches, manufacturing dates (if this is important) and other critical information which needs to be conveyed quickly and easil

Used either alongside different colours of totes (or instead of if this isn’t practical), printing the outside of the totes with specific information can be equally useful in helping to identify specific items, batches or products.

However, it is important to consider that printing batch numbers on totes may not be as cost effective as using labels or other forms of marking, and could potentially render the totes obsolete in the future (depending on your identification system).

Having your totes printed with company branding also has a couple of other benefits.

Firstly, it acts as free advertising for your business particularly useful if the items are travelling between sites), and secondly, if being used as part of a wider supply chain it can help in reducing the number of totes that are stolen for use elsewhere.

Finally, a feature which is again often overlooked but can make a surprising difference to cost is whether your line side containers can be folded flat when not in use.

If you have a large number of totes at any time which are not in use (which may be a legitimate requirement due to fluctuations in demand or the nature of your supply chain), then totes which need to be stored can take up a large amount of warehouse space.

This, in turn, incurs costs, and also limits the expansion of other areas (e.g. more production space, or storage for components or finished products).

Correx® totes can, depending on the design, be folded flat when not in use to mitigate this issue.

A lesser – but still valid – benefit, is that upfront delivery costs would also be much lower too.