NZ Drinks gets on top of the tails

It’s the largest, fastest and most efficient automated water bottling facility in New Zealand, supplying customers across New Zealand and throughout the world. Yet Raa Turua, Operations Manager at NZ Drinks, was faced with an ongoing challenge.

The conventional, older blown wrap product was not sticking properly to the outside of the pallet. This was causing all sorts of problems.

“First, it wasn’t sticking to the pallets. Second, we were getting a lot of sway during travel and, third, we were getting loads returned – which was a huge cost.” says Raa. “It was also causing issues in our satellite racking, as it was blocking sensors.”

These shuttle racking sensors can be sensitive, meaning the entire system is stopped if there are film tails. Retrieving the problematic pallet (and then often re-wrapping it), takes time, money and extra plastic. Add on the issues with pallet film unwinding during transportation with damaged goods and unsafe loads and there was a clear need for a solution.

At NZ Drinks this meant a two-pronged approach – installing a roping unit on the automatic machinery line and moving to a new pallet film: Nanowrap. The former strengthened the film and permitted a greater film tension enabling greater force to load. The latter quickly fixed the tail problem – the 17 micron, 750mm wide Nanowrap film providing far superior binding that endures throughout the transportation of the pallet.

The move to Nanowrap also means using less plastic overall – ensuring NZ Drinks can create further sustainable change here.

“Since going to the Nano and the roping system they (the pallets) are massively stronger travel wise,” says Raa. “With the savings and the racking issue sorted to me, it’s superb.”

We’re also happy to report the gregarious Operations Manager also deems Universal Packaging’s service “brilliant”, particularly when the NZ Drinks team might get caught short.

“When we really need product quickly I can call them and they’ll follow on from there,” says Raa. “Both “the Charlinator” (Charlotte) and Olivia, have been a real key for us to push those orders through. I just make one phone call and they take care of the rest.”

Cheers Raa! We’re always happy to go the distance (to ensure you’re happy your H20 is going the distance too).