Shrink wrapping is incredibly popular and only gets more and more popular each say with new shrink wrapping machines now available to wrap pallets quickly and easily! Any company required to wrap large numbers of pallet loads are highly advised to invest in a pallet-wrapping machine, this will allow them to wrap all of their loads evenly and efficiently and also more quickly whilst saving labour costs. These shrink wrapping machines are typically really easy to use, and only require basic training before you can get started!
However, with this in mind shrink wrap by hand is also popular.
- Start by preparing the load. You need to find a sturdy pallet that is the right size for the boxes or other items that you are looking to wrap together. Once you have found the perfect pallet for your load you should then stack your individual items of boxes as closely as possible on this pallet, leaving as little gaps as possible. The bigger the gaps are between your items, the more ineffective shrink-wrapping will be, as the items will move around inside the wrapping.
- Next, you need to elevate your load so that it is no longer on the ground. You could put your load either on an elevated service or on a stack of empty pallets. Stacked loads are much easier to wrap when they are elevated as opposed to on the ground because it means that you don’t have to keep bending down so far.
- Now you load is stacked it is time to get wrapping. Pull out some shrink-wrap film from your roll and scrunch it together to create a ‘rope’. Thread this ‘rope’ through a corner of your pallet!
- In the same direction as your rope is now facing you should now start wrapping your load together, starting at the base. You have to wrap around the base of your load several times in order for the film to be effective, ensuring that the film goes underneath corners and tightly and tautly as possible. If ever in doubt in regards to whether your base is wrapped enough, keep wrapping!
- Continue wrapping your load base upwards, keeping the shrink film stretched tightly whilst ensuring that each layer overlaps with the previous wrap by at least 50%. The tighter you wrap your loads and the more layers you provide them with, the more secure they will be.
- When your load is fully wrapped you should cut the shrink film off the roll using a pocket knife and then fold under one of the shrink wrap layers to secure.
As you can see it is not that difficult to wrap loads by hand, and it is perfectly possible. However, the only negative is that wrapping pallet loads by hand is terribly time consuming, therefore if you are looking to wrap mammoth amounts, you need to consider investing in machinery.