TNT Deals is a multi-channel fulfillment e-commerce company. As a family-owned business, they are no strangers to hard work and efficiency. What started out as a small business selling office products 18 years ago quickly grew into a fulfillment center with thousands of products of all different shapes and sizes coming in and out. When the 2020 Covid pandemic hit, they found themselves struggling to meet their growing e-commerce demand with a dwindling workforce, increased shipping costs, and a complicated stock box system.
“Being a seller of essential goods, we wanted to get products out the door as quickly as possible, but we didn't have the workforce we needed…,” said Greg Current, Operation Manager, TNT Deals. “That caused us to start looking for other solutions... We did some research, came across Packsize and said, ‘That's probably our answer.’”
TNT Deals needed a solution that would not only be able to meet the packaging needs of their wide range of products, but also would be fast, require minimal employees to operate, and increase overall operational efficiency. This led them to install the Packsize X5®, the world’s first fully-automated erected box system.
“The X5 is the perfect solution for TNT Deals because prior to Packsize, the process had a lot of mundane tasks at their pack out stations,” said Dan Kohlhagen, area manager, Packsize. “They were manually measuring orders, they were manually taping boxes, manually inputting information into shipping software. All of those tasks are now automated through the Packsize solution.”
The X5 performs all the necessary functions to make a ready-to-pack, right-sized box including cut, crease, glue, erect, and apply up to two shipping labels. The best part? It can produce up to 600 of these ready-to-pack right-sized boxes per hour.
“The process has been pretty streamlined since installing the X5,” said Current. “We ended up going from a team of 16 people at one time, producing anywhere from 60 to 100 boxes per person a day, to being able to produce about 400 boxes per hour… We've also been able to reduce staff and staffing needs for the business down to about five total people in the Packsize area, who have all become experts with the X5.”
Along with the X5, TNT Deals packaging solution also includes the Packsize Scan2Pack®. The Scan2Pack is a customizable 3D dimensioning system designed to instantly capture the exact height, length, width, and weight of a product. This data ensures that the X5 creates the exact right-sized box for said product(s), resulting in minimized DIM weight and shipping costs.
“The Scan2Pack has transformed our process flow by reducing errors, improving order accuracy, and increasing productivity,” said Tara Thronton, shipping manager, TNT Deals. “We grab an item and we put it down on the Scan2Pack belt. It runs down the belt, and not only does it measure the dimensions on the item, but it also catches the weight so that, by the time it gets to the person who's actually going to box and ship the item, we already have the perfect box size as well as what the product weighs.”
The new packaging system has been a dramatic change for the TNT Deals warehouse team, who previously would spend their days walking back and forth across the fulfillment center, trying to source the best stock box to fit each order into.
“The packaging process before Packsize ... or as I refer to them: the dark times ... was not great,” joked Current. “We had about 16 employees who would walk back and forth to a wall of hundreds of boxes. As we brought those boxes back, we would realize that they weren't the right size or something just wasn't right. It was constant moving back and forth and trying to figure out what box was right for products. As much as we tried to be efficient, with packing stations stocked with boxes that would fit most products, it didn't always work and we had to think of something new, a better solution.”
This is not an uncommon experience among fulfillment centers working with stock boxes – especially for businesses with a large variety of SKUs.
“When we first started the business, we started with 20 different box sizes. From there we went up to 100 different box sizes to try to reduce our dim weight, which ended up being a huge nightmare for us to manage,” said Ryan Thornton, TNT Deals. “With the Packsize solution, we don't have to worry about that, because the machine is able to make thousands, if not millions of different sizes of boxes at any given point. That has taken a huge weight off of us.”
The truth is, stock boxes almost never can perfectly fit every single product or order that comes through an e-commerce fulfillment center. Plus, stock boxes can be expensive to order and to store, taking up valuable warehouse space that businesses need to stock products.
“When we were dealing with stock boxes, it was a nightmare for us to not only manage the boxes, but the amount of space that those boxes took up in our warehouse,” said Ryan. “Now we only need to order four different [corrugated bale] sizes for the X5 machine, so it made our process of replenishing our corrugate very easy.”
Today, TNT Deals is able to operate their fulfillment center with just five employees, while still getting out over 400 orders every hour. When orders come in, they are picked into a tote, which is then delivered to the Scan2Pack machine. The Scan2Pack captures the dimensions and weight of the order, signaling the X5 to create a right-sized box with a label. The order then gets packed into the box with a packing slip, taped up, and then shipped out to customers.
Employees at TNT Deals also reported more job satisfaction with less manual labor, and a new skill set from working with the X5 and Scan2Pack.
“Our overall experience with Packsize has been great. I know sometimes it can be a little scary, coming into a big piece of equipment,” said Current. “I would say that most people at first are a little intimidated, but eventually they see how the [X5] process improves the quality of life of employees by taking the labor aspect of building a box. I highly recommend Packsize to any company, large or small.”
To learn more about how to optimize operational efficiency in your own warehouse, reach out to a Packsize representative today.
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