Innovative and environmentally friendly packaging system for large-scale warehouses

The dri­ve man­u­fac­tur­er Flen­der and the auto­mo­tive and indus­tri­al sup­pli­er Scha­ef­fler have set them­selves the goal of mak­ing the trans­port of large bear­ings not only safe but also sus­tain­able and have devel­oped a new reusable pack­ag­ing sys­tem. The so-called “SMART-Box” (Scha­ef­fler Mod­u­lar Adapt­able Return­able Trans­port-Box) replaces the pre­vi­ous dis­pos­able trans­port box­es and is cur­rent­ly already being used for large bear­ings with a diam­e­ter of 350 to 750 mm. Togeth­er, the two com­pa­nies are thus mak­ing a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion to resource con­ser­va­tion and waste avoidance.
For Flen­der Group CEO Andreas Evertz, sus­tain­abil­i­ty is a guid­ing prin­ci­ple. “The com­pa­ny has sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly min­i­mized its own CO2 emis­sions in recent years and was able to reduce them by 83 per­cent from 2015 to 2020. By 2030, we want to oper­ate com­plete­ly CO2 neu­tral. In addi­tion, close coop­er­a­tion with cus­tomers and sup­pli­ers is anoth­er impor­tant step toward achiev­ing com­plete cli­mate neu­tral­i­ty. It is there­fore impor­tant for us to also focus on sav­ings poten­tial in the sup­ply chain. We are pleased to now have a part­ner who is also think­ing in this direc­tion. We are already reduc­ing the use of wood as a dis­pos­able pack­ag­ing mate­r­i­al by more than 100 tons per year with the intro­duc­tion of SMART box­es for one type of trans­mis­sion,” says Evertz.
 

“The top­ic of sus­tain­abil­i­ty has been anchored in Scha­ef­fler’s DNA for many years and rep­re­sents one of our four cor­po­rate val­ues. Thanks to the new pack­ag­ing sys­tem, han­dling of the box­es improves, while stor­age vol­ume and ware­hous­ing costs are sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduced. For deliv­er­ies to the com­pa­ny alone, more than 25,000 dis­pos­able trans­port box­es could pre­vi­ous­ly be replaced each year.”
— Dr. Ste­fan Spindler, Chief Indus­tri­al Officer

Innovative design for versatile usability

In devel­op­ing the new pack­ag­ing sys­tem, great impor­tance was attached to usabil­i­ty for rolling bear­ings of dif­fer­ent designs. Cur­rent­ly, the Group is work­ing on the design of the box for sin­gle bear­ings with a diam­e­ter of up to 2400 mm. In addi­tion, a GPS track­ing sys­tem is cur­rent­ly being test­ed, which will enable trace­abil­i­ty of the box­es or bear­ings in trans­port. The size of the box­es is uni­form and adapt­ed to the foot­print of a Euro pal­let; a total of up to five frames can be stacked per pal­let. A com­plete unit of the new pack­ag­ing sys­tem replaces a large num­ber of indi­vid­ual box­es on sev­er­al pallets.
 

Sustainable solutions for the future

Com­pared with the mate­ri­als of the dis­pos­able crates used in the past, the new SMART box results in CO2 sav­ings of more than 50 per­cent. This includes the return trans­port of emp­ties. The CO2 sav­ings are due in par­tic­u­lar to the avoid­ance of wood waste as a result of the increased num­ber of trans­port cycles. Thanks to the abra­sion-resis­tant melamine resin coat­ing on both sides, the SMART box­es are much more robust than uncoat­ed wood­en trans­port box­es and can be used for up to 20 trans­port cycles in total.
 

Striving for sustainable management

Avoid­ing waste and con­serv­ing resources in the sup­ply chain is an essen­tial part of the dri­ve for sus­tain­able busi­ness. In addi­tion to con­sis­tent­ly reduc­ing CO2 emis­sions at its own sites and along the sup­ply chain, the Group is com­mit­ted to the 17 Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals (SDGs) of the Unit­ed Nations. Through eth­i­cal­ly fair behav­ior that com­plies with stan­dards and val­ues, Flen­der specif­i­cal­ly sup­ports sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth and cre­ates a ben­e­fit for society.