Right-Sized Packaging For Cabinetry

You wouldn’t want to have the same kitchen as your neighbors,’ would you? No! It’s almost as embarrassing as showing up to a party with the same dress as someone else.

Well, unless you live in an apartment complex or an extremely homogenous suburb, chances are your kitchen looks very different from your neighbors.’ Fortunately, we live in vastly different houses with very different kitchens.

A lot of that can probably be attributed to your cabinets. Cabinets come with multiple shapes, sizes, colors, functions, and levels of quality. Most houses have a kitchen cabinet set up that is very different from their neighbors, and many have cabinets that are custom-sized to their kitchen.

That’s good for us, but it’s a nightmare for whoever is doing the packaging.

The Problem

When every cabinet is a different shape, deciding how to package them can be a huge headache. Cabinet companies’ choices on this usually fit into two different strategies:

1. Have box SKUs for all possible types of cabinets. This is problematic for a number of reasons—many of which we’ve written about in the past. But I’ll sum it up quickly here: lots of box sizes leads to an inventory headache, and no matter how many you have, there will never be enough to fit every size your company makes.
2. Try to limit box SKUs as much as possible. This is typically done by using complicated trays and sleeves, using expensive foam and/or corrugated padding, or using boxes that have multiple heights. This often causes workers to spend additional time assembling complicated packaging, and sometimes that extra labor may be dangerous for workers—like cutting boxes by hand.

So basically, cabinet companies have a choice of spending extra money packaging through increased inventory and/or time spent packing each item, or spending the extra money in replacement cabinets for goods damaged in transit. It’s not an ideal situation.

Why Packsize Works So Well in this Situation

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We understand that cabinets need a lot of different box sizes and styles, and that they need to be protected on transit. Packsize’s EM Series machines are designed to be able to meet all of these needs. The EM6 can make boxes in sizes that range from small accessories (like hinges and door handles), all the way up to cabinets over eight feet long. Because each box is sized just right, expensive foam and multilayered corrugated corners can be eliminated. And in many cases, double-wall corrugated can be reduced to single-wall. Both of these items provide huge cost savings to cabinetry companies.

However, if you feel the need to have extra protection for your cabinets, Packsize machines can also cut corrugated padding that will add a nice extra layer of protection to your packaging. Some of these packaging designs have been specially designed and patented by our team just for cabinet companies.

Another huge area where On Demand Packaging^® systems help cabinetry makers is with the reduced time it takes to package each cabinet. Cabinets are big, heavy, and awkward. Regular void fill doesn’t work with them. This has led the cabinet industry to use a number of convoluted and time-consuming processes to ensure that their cabinets are delivered safely. Having the ability to grab a perfectly-sized box at the exact moment you need it reduces the headache workers have when packaging cabinets in many unexpected ways. Throughput is greatly increased, and can sometimes affect the amount of labor needed.

Cabinet companies were some of our earliest adopters—and this is because Packsize machines solve so many of the problems associated with cabinet packaging. These companies range in size from a few hundred cabinets shipped per day to a few thousand. Some of these cabinet companies had their workers cutting boxes by hand. These companies saw their cycle times drop from a few minutes per cabinet, down to mere seconds. Other customers have unique dimensions for every cabinet, and they swear by our machines.

Take a moment to learn more about why Packsize is such a boon to cabinet companies by contacting us.

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