Page 26 - The Inside Scoop Archive

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To: Inside Scoop Reader

Are You Getting What You Pay For?

Whether you are buying stretch film, poly bags, shrink sheeting, or donuts; all of us want to know that we
are getting what we pay for. When it comes to poly bags, sheeting, and stretch film there have been many
games played over the years with gauge, count, footage and formulation. I once sold a customer 10,000 lbs
of 1 mil sheeting. He found that some it of was not working; so I went to check it out. Part of the rolls
were 1 mil but many were .7 mil and some were 1.2 mil. Since they averaged the correct gauge the
manufacturer would not stand behind the under-performing rolls that could not be used. I stood
behind them with my checkbook. On another occasion I entered an order for 4 mil shrink bags only to have
the plant send the bags at 2.4 mil and they were totally unusable. Poly bags are traditionally quoted at +/-
10% as it is difficult to control gauge on older blown bag lines. You can count on the bags being 10% light,
never 10% heavy. Some poly extruders will run products sold by the unit ( per bag etc ) light, and run
products sold by the pound heavy. Running heavy on gauge increases output and lowers cost; but means the
customer either gets a heavier film than he needs, or not as many feet of film as he ordered. I once knew a
stretch film manufacturer who would take an order and then based on what the price ended up being,
decide to either shave the gauge or the footage or both to meet his budget.

The grand daddy of them all is what happened to a can liner manufacturer whose plant manager discovered
that as most of his orders were 1.0 mil liners he would not be able to meet his annual volume quota as they
ran at too low of a line speed on his equipment. He figured out that if he ran the bags at 1.5 mil and put less
bags in the case, he would be able to produce enough pounds and cases to meet his annual budget. So he did
it. All was sailing along nicely until a little old lady counted the liners in her case, and found them to be
considerably short in number. She complained to her distributor who did nothing; so she went to the state
weight and measures. They sent people out to count liners from this manufacturer, and found that all the
cases were short in count and heavy in weight. Consequently the manufacturer had to recall over a dozen
full truck loads of can liners from that state, pay pentalies, and undergo close inspection. In this case the
plant manager made his budget and lost his job.

I had better quit telling these film horror stories or I will never get to the part about what you can do to
make sure you are getting what you pay for when you order stretch film, poly bags, or sheeting. Here are
some tips on how to know that you are getting what you pay for:

l First of all, never buy any film product that is not properly labeled with the gauge, width, footage, net
film roll weight etc. If you are buying bags, make sure the bag count per roll or case is on the label.
l The simple formula that I use to get the net film weight of a roll of stretch film or sheeting is:

width ( in inches ) x footage ( in feet ) x gauge ( 80 gauge = .8 ) x 0.0004 = the net film weight of the roll
( without the core )

IE: 80 gauge 20" x 6,000' = 20 x 6000 x 0.8 x 0.0004 = 38.4 net film weight on the roll

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