5 Things To Think About Before You Write An Informative Corrugated Carton Specification
A Kick-Starter Carton Specification Template for the SMB Owner
Why do you need a Corrugated Carton Spec Sheet?
Since you are here, I can assume one of the two things — either you are a corrugated carton manufacturer/ trader/ supplier or a buyer/ user. This post is aimed at small business buyers and users of corrugated cartons made of kraft paper.
You need to know what is the optimum packaging solution for your product that is cost-effective, has a good quality and reflects your brand image. One way of doing it is by testing different samples from your carton manufacturer to determine the right dimensions (L x B x H in mm), wall thickness, shape, and branding.
Question is how will you accurately communicate your expectations to your manufacturer/ supplier? What should the manufacturer know to give you the optimum solution? How will you ensure that the communication is error-free when you proceed to commercial orders?
You have to write an informative corrugated carton specification sheet.
In this post, I will tell you why you need a corrugated carton specification sheet. What are the five things you must know and tell your manufacturer while developing the samples? And finally, I will give you a kick-starter carton specification template to start formalizing your requirement and effectively communicate it with the concerned stakeholders.
A corrugated carton (or box) has certain parameters and characteristics which affect its price and performance. Your decision to use a type of carton may have direct gains like safe handling of your product, boost your brand image or lead to damages, rejection and an additional cost of replacement of the product to your buyer.
Why you should write a specification sheet
I will give you an insight. Let us assume that you are a small business owner and have a person taking care of your orders and procurement. Do you know that there will be a minimum of 5 people involved in the process from order generation to delivery of the finished carton at your end? You and the procurement personnel from your company. The sales and dispatch executive, production supervisor and the operator on the actual machines at your manufacturer’s end.
There are 3x chances of mistakes, failure and incorrect item production and delivery when so many people are involved in the chain of communication.
A specification sheet acts as a reference document and will help in the following ways:
- Standardize/ formalize your requirement and communicate it effectively within and outside your company. This will protect everyone from deviations and perceptual bias.
- The quality and physical appearance of your cartons will remain uniform throughout the lifetime of the specification since everything is in black and white
- It will act as a baseline document for you to improve and track the changes over the years depending on various forces of change
There are 5 fundamental factors that you should know and document while preparing your specification. For each of the factors, I will tell you why they matter.
What are the 5 Factors and Why do they Matter
#1 What is the Product?
Is your product a bottle, a cubical shaped solid object like a smartphone or Rubik’s cube, a chemical in powder form, or non-standard shaped toy like a star? What is the shape? What is the state of your product and the nature of the primary pack? Is it solid like a metal lock or liquid like an energy drink packed in a plastic or glass bottle? Is the product fragile? Is it flammable, hygroscopic or a restricted item?
What is the size of your individual product? I prefer measurements in millimeters. You should note it as length, width and height. All dimensions are mentioned in L x B x H.
How many of that product are you going to pack in a carton? How do you intend to place them? Imagine bottles of shampoo. They may be packed in a set of 2 X 5s or 4 X 3s meaning 2 rows of 5 bottles each or 4 rows of 3 bottles each. Do you intend to stack two rows one above the other?
What will be the total weight of products to be packed in a single carton? If a single bottle of sauce weighs 250 gm and you intend to pack 12 of them in a carton then the weight will be 3 kilograms.
Do you wrap your products in foam or EPS sheets, shrink wrap to protect them? Do you use thermocol or honeycomb to absorb shock during transit? Factor in these packing materials while calculating the dimension of your carton.
I will suggest that you know the cost of the products to be packed in a carton. This way you can compare the cost of the packing material as a percentage of the cost of the products.
Why does shape, size, weight of a product matter?
The product size, shape, number of products in a carton and its placement matters to determine the overall dimension of the carton. Are their voids that must be filled to ensure that the carton does not collapse? A carton dimension should be such that the products fit in snugly without leaving any gaps.
The role of weight is important because during transportation you will be stacking them one above the other. The cartons should be strong enough to bear the additional weight.
#2 Product Delivery to End-Customer
I had a customer who developed a carton to pack motorcycle silencers. These were packed and delivered to their customers’ motorcycle garages (B2B sale). The business owner would deliver these in his own car.
Few months later he called me and complained that the cartons were failing. His products were getting damaged. On asking him about the details, I came to know that now the same carton was used to pack and dispatch the silencers through commercial transport in part load. It means he had no control over where the item was placed in the truck and what was placed above or below it. We had to redo the carton specification to adjust to this revised form of product delivery to their end-customer.
You should have a clear idea of your supply chain — from the time the product is packed into the cartons till delivery at the point where the cartons will be removed and set aside.
Is it for domestic use or exports? Is it for retail (B2C) or institutional sale, E-commerce? How will you transport the goods in the carton?
Where does this carton fit in the packing scheme? Is it the primary, secondary or tertiary carton?
Quick explanation. Think of a small box of a bar of soap. The box is the primary carton. Say 50 such boxes of soap are packed in a carton. This will be the secondary carton. Now 10 such secondary cartons are packed in a large outer carton and kept on a pellet. This is your tertiary carton.
Why should product delivery matter in carton specification?
It will tell you whether you need a carton for transport with the legal compliance printed on it or an aesthetically pleasing one with branding.
If we are trying to make a secondary or tertiary carton, transportation becomes a critical input factor. The weight of the cartons will impact your transport cost. If it is for exports, you will need to optimize it for container space, net, gross and tare weight.
This brings us to the next point — material handling.
#3 Material Handling
A packed carton undergoes multiple change of hands from your warehouse till it reaches the end customer.
In some countries most of the handling is done using mechanical contraptions. But in a country like India even heavy cartons are sometimes manually lifted and moved from the truck to the rack. Can you imagine what might happen to that carton of soaps if it is manually pushed out of a truck at the unloading bay? It might remain intact or fall on a side/ corner and get damaged.
Unloading can be done using forklifts or manually depending on cost, control, availability of equipment, location etc.
You have to know how your goods are being handled at different touch points.
Why do you need to know about material handling?
If you know that the carton will be handled manually, there has to be a limit to the weight. As per OSHA, the preference is to limit the weight to 50 pounds. This is what an average man can lift. But if a worker has to lift 50 pounds continuously, soon fatigue will set in. He will either slow down or start making mistakes like dropping the cartons.
The weight will impact the dimension of the cartons because you can only fill up so much and not more. But if the cartons are going inside a container then you need to optimize the dimensions further as discussed earlier. If you leave gaps in a container while stacking columns of cartons, then might topple over to one side at high sea. Result will be damaged cartons and goods.
#4 Branding and Communication
Every carton has valuable space (business real estate) for branding and communication to attract and engage customers. You can check out what your competitors are doing with their cartons if you need some inspiration and direction.
The least you can do is print your brand name, logo, tag line, product name and attributes like weight, color or whatever is worth communicating. You can also print important compliance information, instructions on recycling the carton.
The cartons that we manufacture are mainly secondary and tertiary ones. Most of my customers get the above printed and also include handling symbols, bar codes or geometric hollow shapes to put stickers. A lot of art is not wasted on these cartons and usually printed in a single color or two at most.
The primary cartons (like those of lipstick, eye liner, perfume) are lavished with branding, choice of colors, embossing, artistic layout, instructions, compliance information you name it. Because in the end, this is what will fall at the hands of your end user.
Why does branding information matter in cartons?
You are losing out on a massive opportunity if you are not using your cartons for branding. Ask yourself what you will be printing and where.
We ask the printing layout on cartons from our customers to determine if it is feasible and correct.
Feasible because sometimes customers come up with visually pleasing designs that look great on the Adobe Illustrator screen but the actual output might be far away from that.
Correctness is not from an information point of view but positioning. One customer wanted detailed information to be printed on top of a regular slotted carton. We tried to explain that since they are using 4 inches wide self-branded sticking tapes, the print matter will not be visible. We made a dummy and demonstrated it. They removed the entire matter from the top flaps.
The other thing is will it be visible. Suppose you stack 5 cartons then the handling symbols printed on top or bottom will not be visible to the handlers. You need to print them on the sides.
If you are opting for multi-colored offset printing, you must have a bulk requirement of minimum 3–5000 pieces. Anything less than that will make the job expensive. Alternately, you can choose to get good quality flexo printing on your cartons.
Branding information will enable your manufacturer to accurately quote their rates and delivery timeline.
#5 Volume, Complexity, Priority
This is slightly subjective and qualitative in nature. Since a lot of factors affect the ultimate specification of a carton you have to prioritize your requirement.
What is important for you — cost, appearance, utility (like protection), efficiency of the packaging process in your shop floor, (do you have adequate labor to do the packaging or it is automated)?
What will be your Minimum Order Quantity? Are you going to buy in bulk or in smaller lot sizes?
Normally automated processes use simple universal regular slotted cartons as they are easy to close and tape unlike the aesthetically evolved but complex auto lock ones.
Why do they matter?
A carton may look simple and innocuous but it has many facets to it and far-reaching impact unless chosen correctly. Based on all the inputs including your priorities, you can write a precise spec for customizing your box to reduce cost, have the appropriate quality and deliver on performance.
You have to strike a fine balance between elements like low wastage, recyclable material, optimum shipping costs, and zero rejections. And the biggest “ask” is the appearance of the carton should be aligned to the brand’s value and communicate the company’s ethos.
A Kick-Starter Carton Specification Template for the SMB Owner
Let us say after 2–3 trials, you have an approved sample and ready to place commercial orders. Now is the time to rewrite that all-important carton specification sheet based on your initial communication for samples.
This is a generic 1-pager template with the basic minimum information to build momentum. You and your team can build on it. You can download it here and share it freely.
Many of my customers have gone ahead with adding separate sheets to define the printing specification too.
Proof lies in the pudding
I hope the post has inspired you to take action and work on your carton specifications. Just go ahead and pick up one carton and start with the exercise. Give it a try. You will not see the results today or tomorrow but look back six months down the line to see how process-driven and streamlined you are.
If you are reading an advice or tip, try it before junking it altogether. You never know where you strike pay dirt.
If you have questions, feel free to ping me, and let’s talk.
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