Internal transit dividers

The customer manufactures internal door components for a well-known luxury car manufacturer. The inserts are placed in plastic stillages straight from the production line, before the plastic has had time to fully cure and are then shipped with no internal packaging/protection in the stillage. This has been resulting in damage-based rejections, costing around £430,000 annually. The customer challenged us to find a solution which fits the four door component size variants, prevents damage and doesn’t slow down the rate at which the stillages are packed.

Our is a set of buffered corrugated divisions which has the components packed in a row in one direction, while also allowing for additional components to be packed perpendicular to the main packing row to make maximum usage of the customers stillage.

Two design types were explored, the first was a bespoke division set for each of the four component sizes. This optimised transport costs as additional components could fit in the stillages for the smaller components but resulted in a higher unit cost for lower quantities as well as additional inbound storage space at the production facility.

The second design option was a one-size fits all style to reduce unit cost, inbound storage requirements and also had the added benefit of simplifying the amount of cardboard SKU’s the customer had to manage into their operational area.

Due to the large size of the division set (1120mm x 920mm x 410mm when assembled), which is placed into the stillage by a single person, plus the need to provide suitable protection a heavier board grade of B300KK(175s/c) was selected.

The new components went through a rigorous testing process both packing and transit. The latter resulted in no damage to the components at all when our dividers were used in the packing process.

Whilst a new corrugated spend was attributed to the customer, the resulting removal of any damage delivers a c.80% saving for the customer.

c.7,800 sets will be manufactured each year.

As a result of our design, a significant and costly damage issue has been successfully resolved with minimal increases to packing time and reassurance that parts arrived undamaged when travelling through the supply chain.