One of the key differences is the perceived value of the packaging in a retail environment. Blister packaging has the highest perceived value, with its protective and glossy PVC shell design, cleaner lines, and the potential to showcase high-quality graphics, while skin packaging is typically used for items of lower cost.

What to Consider When Deciding Between Skin Packaging and Blister Packaging

There are several aspects to keep in mind when selecting either blister packaging or skin packaging. These include:

• The cost of the product on the shelf – If the item sells at a low cost, skin packaging is likely the better option.
• The volume of your packaging production runs – If you have millions of units to sell, skin packaging is likely going to be more cost-effective in the long run. However, if you only have several thousand units, you may find both skin and blister packaging to be the same in cost.
• The items being packaged – Items such as accessories, metal components, or hardware that are small and light are best-suited for skin packaging.
• The number of items consumers will view – If you want to display several items within your packaging, skin packaging is the best option.
• Graphics displaying instructions for use and other information – Blister packaging is ideal if you plan on including high-quality graphics or text on the packaging to accompany your products.

Other Benefits of Using Either Packaging

Blister packaging comes with a variety of benefits, such as:

• Multiple design options including full face blister, trap blister, and mock clamshell
• Resistance to theft and tampering
• Ability to keep product stored on shelf standing up or hung on a peg, with either a stand-up or hang hole, respectively
• Usable in all retail outlets
• No need for die cutting
• Cost-effective printing options
• Protective PVC blister to keep your product visible

There are also several advantages that come with skin packaging, including:

• Lower expenses for high-volume orders
• Clear film on the front of the package gives consumers a clear view of the product
• Ability to display several components in a single package
• Glossy film that keeps the product consistently protected
• Hang hole for hanging on pegs in-store

Considering the variety of benefits that come with both of these packaging options, you’ll find a use for either when looking for a packaging solution that’s right for your retail products. There are many different options for each type of packaging, helping you customize packaging that serves as an effective means of supplementing your products. With skin or blister packaging, you can showcase your products while saving money and increasing your products’ perceived value.

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Disposing of carton packaging results in a lot of waste that mostly winds up in landfills, which has made sustainability more popular over the years as companies look for a way to contribute less waste. Here are some of the sustainable packaging trends that we’re seeing in 2018.

1. Informative Labeling

The first step you need to take is to create clear labeling for your packaging that details how to properly dispose of it and includes claims of sustainability. With more details included in the package’s labeling, you can encourage consumers to properly recycle the product or otherwise dispose of it.

2. More Lightweight Packaging Options

Lightweight packaging has also become more popular with time. This is due to the certain benefits that come with these options, including the fact that less materials are needed to manufacture them, low manufacturing costs, and minimized environmental impact from transportation.

3. More Recyclable Materials

More and more packaging is constructed using recyclable materials that help minimize the impact on the environment, whether it’s made using paper, plastic, cardboard, or other materials. Recyclable packaging materials are also affordable in most cases.

4. Edible Packaging

Edible packaging is another attempt to efficiently decrease waste that certain companies are beginning to try. While this is a great way to get rid of packaging waste entirely, many consumers are understandably concerned about how hygienic the packaging will be, while companies have concerns regarding logistics and the risk of breakage. However, we’re likely to see more solutions to these issues in the near future.

5. Slimmer Packaging

Packaging will also continue to get smaller over time to take up less space and make the most of the packaging design. For instance, unnecessary open spaces will be eliminated, and packaging designs will continue to become more minimalistic.

As carton packaging continues to serve as a popular option for packaging companies of all types across a wide range of products, sustainability will soon be regularly implemented with each package. As a result, more innovative solutions will utilize sustainable construction to maximize efficiency and decrease waste.

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A challenging economy and fluctuating fuel prices have made transportation, materials, and logistics management more difficult than ever for manufacturers. That’s why it has become so important in recent years for OEMs to focus their attention on supply chain management issues such as customer requirements, capacity constraints, contingency planning, sub-tier capability, resource allocation, and employee skills. As a Tier One parts consolidation supplier, Fapco is constantly working to stay on the cutting edge of all materials management issues.

Fapco’s Certifications

One of the ways they keep up to date is by achieving the latest industry certifications. Fapco established a position of quality leadership in 1994 by earning one of the first ISO9002 registrations awarded to a North American packager. The bar was raised once again with the achievement of QS9000 registration in 1997. Now registered to ISO 9001:2008, their rigorous internal audit program ensures the continuation of Fapco’s reputation for quality. The most recent goal Fapco is working towards is MMOG/LE.

About MMOG

Materials Management Operations Guideline Logistics Evaluation (MMOG/LE) is the global standard for supply chain management processes, and is aimed at reducing costs from errors, waste, and workload for suppliers and customers.

“It’s an auto industry standard similar to ISO process,” said Fapco’s Materials Manager Jo Ann Pressey. “Where ISO concentrates on your quality control processes and procedures, MMOG focuses on the materials management side of the business. It mirrors the ISO program on the materials side, and will allow us to reduce any gaps in the supply chain for our clients.”

“The program takes the industry gold standards of what an optimum materials logistics operation should look like; and we go through every department within Fapco to assess how we match up to these standards and practices, and how we can improve upon what we’re already doing. It’s similar to an ISO audit.”

Benefits of Certification

The initial process is already underway at Fapco. There are six total chapters of continuous improvement assessments that will be completed. “We’ve worked a lot in the past to improve our QAD processes, and this fits right in with that. MMOG and QAD go hand-in-hand,” added Pressey.

Although the automotive industry is the first to adhere to this global standard, Fapco’s clients in all industries can benefit from their achievement of this process. “It will be a natural fit  in the industrial side of our business as well,” concluded Pressey. “Everyone will benefit.”

Fapco Honored With Major Quality Award

Fapco Provides Zero Quality Defects Over a Three-month Period in Which Fapco Shipped Over 2.3 Million Parts

Founder and President Larry Gardiner was pleased that his team was awarded. “We are very honored that our team was presented this award in a supplier meeting,” he said. “We had no previous notice it was coming. It means a great deal to all of us here at Fapco as it validates our commitment to excellence from a very special partner customer.”

The quality award is the result of zero quality defects over a 3-month period in which Fapco shipped over 2.3 million parts. The presentation emphasized the fact that Fapco shipped over 4.8 million parts over the last six months with only one reject for four pieces, bringing their six month parts per million (ppm) score to one.

“This was special to us. We are measured by customers on a regular basis on many criteria,” said Operations Manager, Scott Sloniker. “On-time delivery, cycle times and defects per million are just a few. They measured us for this award based on a part per million defects. The standard for the year was 350 ppm defective. We raised the bar with zero parts per million for three months — almost unheard of — and another three months with only one four piece defect. So our overall ppm score was only one ppm over a six-month period.”

Sloniker explained that at that point in time Fapco had processed over 4.8 million parts for this award over a six-month period. He reviewed the process that revolves around capturing and verifying the supplier information, cross-referencing the data, getting the right box with the right label, and then shipping it to the correct location.

“We ship to multiple depots in two different ways. We’re processing between 17,000 and 20,000 unique SKUs here. Some ship three times per month, others once per year, so there is no way to get familiar with distributing one part,” stated Sloniker proudly. “This is pretty amazing and remarkable and is such a testament to all our team members working together as one. I can’t express how proud I am of everyone.”

Fapco has a history of both high quality and delivery performance with its customers. Fapco has received similar awards from several Fortune 100 companies. Whether it’s JIT inventory warehousing, small parts packaging or packaging using cold seal packaging machines, we will work to help your business grow. Get Started with Fapco Inc. today!

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Companies that provide kitting and assembly services make end users happy because they are more than a typical supplier — they are full service providers, problem solvers and business partners.

When a major automaker needed help engineering packaging, assembling, warehousing and delivery of fuel modules to its distribution centers, the professionals at Fapco looked at the overall set of challenges and quickly established themselves as a Tier 1 supplier in the automakers logistics supply chain.

Larry Gardiner, president of Fapco, Inc., recounted how the process began in 2003: “They were having a lot of recalls due to damage on some fuel mod kits. The lever that shows how much fuel was in the tank kept breaking.

These modules are inside the gas tank with an electronic indicator that sends signals to the instrument panel to gauge the level of fuel. We found that these arms were getting damaged because they weren’t packaged properly,” he said.

Engineering a Packaging Solution

Fapco’s in-house Packaging Engineers, Rex Krumrie and Scott Gorton, addressed the kitting & assembly issue. “Further up the supply chain, the part was having field damage. It was being packaged as a foam-in-place item,” explained Gorton. He said since the modules were slightly different for varying model cars, as well as having a right and left gas tank placement, the challenge was to design a uniform package that would house and protect all the different part configurations.

“They are a common assembly but very different in physical shape. So, we designed a mold that would fit both parts in a standardized foam block package and pretty much eliminated the damage problem,” said Gorton

The nice thing about these molded foam block solutions, as Gorton explained, is that they provide uniformity for difficult parts. Workers must arrange the part perfectly because it will only fit in the mold one way. This reduces operator error in the packaging process to assure quality packaging of the part each time. “In high volumes, this type of packaging actually provides a cost savings because it’s quicker handling to put these in the box than having to foam them in place,” he said.

The Logical Transition to Tier One Supplier

The management team at Fapco explained that for the U.S. Big Three automakers and many other large manufacturers, it just makes sense for kitting and assembly packaging specialists to utilize all of their integrated parts flow management process and tools to become Tier 1 suppliers.

Fapco poses the question: “Why should the manufacturer deal with 10 parts and all of the suppliers involved, when they can just sell one part, or one kit, in one box-consolidated, warehoused and order fulfilled by us?”

Gorton elaborated, “From the large manufacturer point of view, outsourcing parts is cheaper than taking the parts back in-house, and, our customers end up buying one assembled part from us as opposed to multiple parts from multiple suppliers. The solution became clear. They said ‘Here’s where you can buy fuel modules, here’s where to buy gaskets, here’s what the parts cost, give us our cost for the complete package. “We buy part A and we buy part B, and we consolidate to meet our customer’s pricing.’ And that’s what we continue to do,” he concluded.

As a specialist in integrated parts flow management, Fapco has found a niche in Tier One kitting and sub assembly. The company now continues to refine and further expand their service by also taking on projects like consolidating parts for a 15-piece carburetor into a carburetor rebuild kit for a major outboard marine manufacturer.

“We are now officially a Tier One supplier. We don’t go out and do engineering of the part, or that sort of thing. We have our customer perform all the engineering and design work. We just buy them as a replacement part from the customer’s suppliers. What started out as two fuel modules for one major automotive parts maker has grown to now hundreds of different parts and kits. We’ve done this since late 2004 and we’re running at the rate of about 4,000 a month for about six months out of the year, so we’ve put out a few. Tier 1 has now become a major part of our business,” concluded Larry Gardiner, president of Fapco.

Wrap It Up

Adapting to Customer Needs — To become more efficient , Fapco retooled the way it handled business with additional staffing in the purchasing department, and significant capital investments in inventory and warehousing with over $200,000.00 in fuel module inventory alone.

Long Term Investing — Partnering with our customers and utilizing our integrated parts flow management team, we became a Tier One supplier showing our customer a commitment to bulk inventory and warehousing of parts that may not be fulfilled until years later. The bulk of the inventory is kept at minimum quantity level by part number. But a safety stock quantity can also be kept ready in anticipation of future sales.

Your One Stop Shop Solution — From custom engineered parts packaging solutions, to completely scalable and adaptable clamshell and aftermarket parts packaging, kit packaging, returns packaging, private labeling and consumer products packaging, Fapco is the Tier 1 Full Service Provider that simply does it all.

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“Instead of us handing all the fastener inventory in-house, the fastener company manages the inventory, then we order and pack it for our customer as needed.  On the small parts kitting side, we manage the inventory based on the end customer needs,” said Sloniker.  He explained this could include the OEM designating where to buy the fasteners and how many to have on hand.  He said in this economy many manufacturers are going to smaller and smaller lot sizes.  “They leverage having just enough inventory available with fastener companies and Fapco.”

Whether its part kitting or cold seal for industrial packaging, Fapco Inc. will work to help your business grow. Get Started with Fapco Inc. today!

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