The Significant Six Packaging Review
90% of a packaging operation's costs are hidden. These costs to your business are also costs to the environment.
Our Significant Six Packaging Review can help to reduce or eliminate these costs, saving you money while simultaneously supporting your CSR goals by reducing the environmental impact of your whole operation.
Tailored to meet your priorities
You can choose to prioritise cost reduction or reduced environmental impact when we conduct your review. But whatever your priorities, most measures designed to improve efficiency and reduce costs also benefit the environment.
How cost reduction reduces environmental impact
- Increasing the number of packs shipped per vehicle will reduce transport costs and C02 emissions
- Reducing damage and return rates will reduce CO2 emissions as well as the cost per product delivered
- Introducing paperless end to end administration – from ordering to invoicing – will improve operational efficiency, reduce cost and improve your carbon footprint
- Innovative packaging can increase productivity, reduce packaging weight and deliver operational cost savings
Happier customers
And a better-designed, more environmentally-friendly packaging operation will keep your customers happy (and more likely to use you again).
A boost to your business
In short, the Significant Six Packaging Review will help you transform the efficiency of your packaging operation, improve your environmental performance and deliver a better service to your customers.
What are the Significant Six?
At Macfarlane Packaging we have spent decades innovating and perfecting packaging for a wide range of markets. Packaging that is strong, light, space-efficient and, increasingly, environmentally friendly.
In doing so we have isolated six hidden costs that have the biggest impact on most packaging operations. We call them The Significant Six. They are:
Storage Costs
Transport Costs
Damages & Returns
Administration Costs
Increase Productivity
Customer Experience
Reclaim space and save a world of waste
We can hold your stock for JIT delivery from our national network of regional distribution centres
Reduce the amount of packaging stock held at your site to free up valuable space and improve cash flow.
Letting us store your packaging for you will free up storage and the money once used to bulk buy slow running stock. Our distribution centres offer national coverage so you will always get the right amount of packaging, exactly when you need it.
Less wasteful – more sustainable
Just in time delivery from us will also reduce the inevitable wastage of slow running stock caused by obsolescence or damage over time. And reducing waste in supply chains is a key consideration in making them more sustainable.
Maximise your pallet yield and minimise transport costs
Lighter, more space efficient packaging can reduce your transport costs
We’ll help you match or exceed current protection, save on space and weight.
We can source or design packs that are lighter, smaller and just as strong as your current ones. Modern single-walled boxes can reduce height and length by up to a centimetre with no loss of protection. This allows for pallet optimisation and can reduce the number of journeys per volume of goods shipped.
Lower fuel costs, lower CO2 emissions
The right transit pack is light, strong and space efficient – in two important ways: it is a better fit for the product, so you are not shipping air, and it allows pallet optimisation, so you can shift more stock in fewer vehicle movements. Fewer journeys equals less CO2, so the right packaging is an important part of a low carbon supply chain.
Our innovative products can help you dramatically reduce the cost of damages and returns
We reduce damages and returns by:
Considering your packaging
Through the use of innovative materials and design, along with global sourcing, we can offer you packs that are the perfect fit and strong enough to guarantee product protection. Our packs are often lighter than customers’ current choices too, providing additional savings through reduced transport costs.
Assessing your processes and equipment
Partial or full automation improves productivity and product protection because the boxes used in automation are light but strong. Efficiently packed goods are better protected – just one way in which changing a process can protect your products.
Understanding your products’ journeys
From aerospace and engineering to e-retail, we understand the diverse needs of very different industries and sectors. We develop packaging that protects every imaginable product in storage and throughout its supply chain journey.
Minimising environmental impact
All the energy and precious resources used to produce any product are wasted if it is damaged in storage or transit. And replacing it doubles the carbon footprint per order. That’s why our packs are strong enough for product protection while also being reusable, recyclable and easily returnable – Macfarlane Packaging minimises waste.
We can take the hassle and costs out of your single-sourced packaging supply
The simplicity of a single supplier
Avoid the increased warehouse handling and excessive paperwork of multiple suppliers. Macfarlane Packaging can supply all of your packaging needs through:
- Global reach – we have a network of suppliers worldwide
- Purchasing power – we buy at a scale that enables us to negotiate the best prices
- In-house design and production expertise – we can make any type of packaging you may need
- A national distribution network – we can deliver anywhere in the UK
Easy and simple order management
And then there’s Simplicit.e, our new online order management system. Bespoke and scalable, it allows you to order any time anywhere. You can order via phone app, desktop, E2E or punchout. It can be fully integrated with your own systems and processes, including using your product numbers, and is available free to all Macfarlane Packaging customers. Follow the link to find out how much simpler your packaging operation can be.
Streamlined for sustainability
Using Simplicit.e, our integrated e-trading software, saves a mountain of paperwork throughout the buying process, with obvious benefits to the environment. Consolidating suppliers also helps the environment because we can supply all your packaging needs and plan a supply chain that minimises vehicle movements.
Work smarter, not harder
We can help you develop a more flexible, resilient and cost-efficient operation
Our innovative approach focuses on product and process to shape a packaging operation that delivers speed, accuracy and product integrity.
Improved productivity flows naturally from eliminating the other five Significant Six costs. Stock holding and JIT supply (storage costs) managed through Simplicit.e, our online order management system (admin costs), supports auto boxing and auto bagging (productivity), which in turn improves product protection (damages and returns) and pallet optimisation (transport costs), all of which improves customer satisfaction.
But our Significant Six Cost Finder does more. By examining every aspect of your operation in relation to your business objectives, we will help you design new processes that maximise the effectiveness of your people at every stage and are flexible and resilient enough to cope with the demands of peak.
Automation
Full or partial packaging automation is often key to driving up productivity. Amongst the many products we offer are: auto boxing, auto bagging, air cushioning systems, paper cushioning machines, auto tape machines, stretch wrap machines, shrink wrapping machines and strapping machines.
Sustainability meets cost-efficiency when you do more with less
Using the best pack for the product makes packing easier and quicker – a productivity gain. But it also minimises use of materials (the box isn’t too big and stuffed with void fill). The most effective use of packs and equipment, including automation, drives up productivity while minimising use of materials and improving product protection; both vital to a more sustainable packaging operation.
Customers reward companies that show they care
Possibly the most important thing our packaging products and services protect is your reputation and your customer experience.
This matters because, in an age of internet shopping, the packaging your product arrives in and the experience of unboxing combine to create a key brand touch point for your customers.
Stand-out branded packaging can wow them. Packaging that’s the perfect fit for a well-protected product will impress them. Environmentally-friendly packaging will show them you take sustainability seriously.
Request your Significant Six packaging review
To talk to us about reducing your costs and supporting your CSR goals, fill in and submit the form.