Golf is a game of paradoxes. That’s one of the reasons it captures our imagination. Any duffer can shoot a 120, but it takes a Tiger Woods to consistently shoot 65’s. Tiger’s swing is so effortless and natural that it looks like anybody could do it. Take a stick and hit a ball. Could any thing be easier?
In some ways stretch wrapping is like golf. It looks easy too. Wrap plastic around a pallet stacked with stuff. How hard can that be?
It must harder than it looks. Because everywhere we go, we see the stretch wrapping equivalent of hooks, slices, and bogeys - loads coming apart, twisted or crushed loads, loads sliding off their pallets, or loads with long tails of stretch film hanging off them.
Few golfers make the transition from duffer to scratch player. They never master the fundamentals of the game. Experts say this is because duffers work on trying to hit Tiger Woods-like drives instead of improving their short games. Apparently it’s easier and more fun to chase what’s most visible and exciting.
Technology hasn’t helped either. Even in the wake of oversize drivers, irons made from space age materials, and ergonomic putters, the average golf score still hovers around 100, where it’s been for over a century. That’s about 28 strokes over par, by the way.
Stretch wrapping is also overpopulated with duffers. Like their golfing counterparts, stretch wrapping duffers don’t master the fundamentals and fail to become experts. They’re also distracted by chasing the wrong things – like film gauge or prestretch - instead of making sure their loads are wrapped properly.
Stretch wrapping machines that are hard to adjust and need lots of attention also handicap the stretch wrapping duffer. This deadly combination of poor fundamentals and tweaky machines has produced a general level of stretch
wrapping quality that’s equivalent to the 100 stroke golf score. No wonder bad loads are everywhere.
Though it hasn’t helped golf, technology holds out hope for stretch wrapping. Golf’s variations are caused by the human element not by equipment. Each player must master golf’s fundamentals. There are no short cuts. No matter how high tech or expensive his clubs, a golfer still needs a sound swing. And he can’t buy that at the pro shop But today we can buy good loads. A recent spurt of technical advances like metered film delivery, machine generated performance data, Pallet Grip®, load seeking clamps, and process control systems* is leading a technology renaissance that’s rationalizing the entire stretch wrapping process.
It’s never been easier to get stretch wrapping right than it is today. The variability caused by human error is gone. The machine and the process now manage the fundamentals instead of the person. And good loads, stretch wrapping’s equivalent of golf’s par, are becoming the rule instead of the exception.
More info:
www.lantech.com