CASE STUDY No. 9625

KEY WORDS MOLDABLE LOOSEFILL CUSHIONING, WATER DEGRADABLE

Mosler Company
Electronics Systems Division
415 Hamburg Pike
Wayne, NJ 07470

Contact: William M. Sparta, Manufacturing Engineer. Tel: 201-595-4395.  Fax: 201-595-4198

Summary

By replacing foam-in-place urethane with a moldable, water-degradable cushioning system, Mosler saves $27,000 a year in the cost to package precision equipment for drive-up banks. And on the receiving end, the starch-based cushioning material can be simply disposed of in water.

Action

Mosler manufactures pneumatic transfer equipment for drive-through service at banks. The two main components are a control panel and tubing. To cushion the control panel for shipment, Mosler had been using a urethane foam that expanded to the container size. This process required two 55-gallon drums per month of nontoxic liquids that, when mixed, molded to a solid foam. The shipping box also had to be lined with a special paper insert to protect it from deterioration by the urethane during hardening.

Mosler's new packaging process has the trade name Enviromold, from Enpack, a DuPont/ ConAgra company, and is being marketed by Norel Co., 223 Gates Rd., Little Ferry, NJ 07643 (contact Glen Wilson, 201-440-4400). The loosefill packaging material is manufactured of corn or potato starch. It is dispensed from a hopper mounted above the packaging station. Prior to placement in a shipping container, the cushioning material passes through a chamber where it is sprayed with a controlled amount of water. The operator then fills the shipping container halfway and places the bagged product--in this case, the control panel of an automatic teller machine--in the center. Then the shipping container is topped out with loosefill and stapled closed. Meanwhile, the moistened loosefill has molded to the shape of the product and cured as a semi-rigid mass that is strong enough to keep the product surrounded with a protective cushion during transit.

A big trade-off for Mosler in adopting the new system is the space occupied by the starchy pellets, which it receives at the rate of sixty 2-cu-yd bags per week (1,080 cu ft), for periodic loading into the 400-cu-ft hopper. Otherwise, the company counts these benefits:

  1. Reduced disposal at packing station--only the film bags of incoming loosefill. Formerly, two steel drums had to be disposed monthly.
  2. Easier packing--no urethane dispensing guns to handle.
  3. Lower maintenance because equipment is self-cleaning, has very few parts. Urethane dispensing guns had to be cleaned or replaced.
  4. Increased productivity by eliminating set-ups, which added an hour a day to operator time.

Payback

Mosler recovered the $5,000 conversion cost in less than 3 months. The company also reduced the cost of cushioning materials to 87¢ per cu ft from $1.24, for a saving of $23,000 per year. Total cost reduction--materials and labor--is about $27,300 a year. Assuming that customers dispose of the water-soluble, nontoxic cushioning material by flushing it down the drain, this change in packaging saves Mosler's customers the expense of disposing of about 3,000 cu yds of urethane foam per year.

 

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