As a manufacturer or distributor of foods or consumer goods, you may experience growing pains as your business handles increased demand. These pains often include bandwidth limitations and labor issues, and packaging line automation is an excellent place in your production line to eliminate them.

As a business owner, you know that making sales is probably the most exciting part of your business. But what happens after the order is placed? Somehow your product needs to end up in your customer's hands. If you've been manufacturing, distributing, and selling for a while, you've probably thought about storage space, shipping, and fulfillment. And, while you could do all of this stuff yourself, you may be able to save time and money by outsourcing these elements of your business to a contract packaging company. For over two decades, Industrial Packaging has been managing warehousing and fulfillment as part of our contract packaging services for countless businesses. This article will explore how outsourcing your warehousing and fulfillment responsibilities to a contract packaging company can benefit your business.

DOWNTIME.. It's the bane of any busy manufacturing or distribution floor, and it impacts more than just time. It often comes down to how well you maintain your packaging machinery, aside from the occasional fluke machinery issue.

Running a successful supply chain takes a lot of work, a lot of relationship building and a lot of planning. If the space, labor or capabilities are limited on your end, outsourcing with a co-packer is an excellent option and more than worth review. With fixed costs and a multitude of other benefits, working with a co-packer can help you accomplish a seasonal project or can grow a long term partnership that can free up resources and capital for you to grow. When we start a new contract packaging or fulfillment project we follow 8 simple steps for success. It all starts by reverse-engineering the entire process, from end-user delivery to your timeline demands. Here's how we keep our customer's on track and how you can use these steps to do the same:

If you have a start up business in retail and consumer goods markets, you have plenty of hurdles to overcome as you get your product off the ground. According to an article from Fortune.com and featured by Forbes, 90% of start ups fail. The reasons so many fail are varied and range anywhere from lack of need in the market, lack of funds, the wrong team, or simply strong(er) competition; one way to keep your business on the right track is finding the ideal product packaging, processes, suppliers that will help guide your business and your product launch to success.

The last thing that you want to worry about is your product leaving your business or facility and ending up at it’s destination damaged or completely destroyed. Unfortunately this isn't a rare occurence. No matter if it's your fault due to packaging issues or someone elses as it's in handled transit, it's a representation of your product and brand to the person or business receiving it. In fact, pallet loads can even be turned away at the distribution center, costing thousands for one unit. This can not only cause significant delays in delivery, but also potential damage to your business relationships. When shipping damage occurs you then have to ship out a new product to replace the damaged goods, which can end up costly for your business . The process itself of even looking into where the damage occured or who is liable can be grueling in itself. Additionally, figuring out if the cost will be covered by the carrier or damager and whether they have the insurance to cover it can be a whole other issue in itself. Even if the third party has the insurance to cover it, damaged goods claims can take a bit of time and in most cases, it may be easier to take on the cost yourself for the time spent on monitoring the claim or waiting.