Mosca Banders Help Daniel’s Reduce Shipping Damage
In the mid-1990s, the founder of what is now Daniel’s Amish Collection, began making Amish buggy carvings for tourists. At the time, Daniel Yoder couldn’t have envisioned how his business would evolve. Today, Daniel’s Amish Collection offers a broad range of hand-crafted bedroom and dining room furniture made in two factories in Killbuck, OH in the middle of Amish region. The Amish furniture is sold in fine furniture stores around the country.
As the business has grown, so has its packaging requirements.
Shipping any high-value product around the U.S. means secure protection is a necessity. The typical packaging method used for furniture protection is to place the finished piece on a custom-sized bottom corrugated tray, hand apply stretch wrap to protect the vertical surfaces, cover the top with a protective foam wrap, form and place a second tray over the top of the unit and use plastic straps to secure the whole package together. Daniel’s Amish® followed suit, and in the beginning, applied the straps by hand.
However, as the business grew, the hand strapping operation created a bottleneck and the applied tension on the strap varied by operator, often yielding an unsatisfactory package. In 2013, the company purchased a used Mosca banding machine to speed up and add consistency to the strapping operation. The ROMS-4/1 side sealer was a significant improvement, but on the heaviest products, it couldn’t get the straps as tight as desired and the polypropylene (PP) strapping used was a bit too stretchy with a tendency to loosen during storage and transport.
New Mosca Bander Introduced at IWF 2014
Through discussions with EAM-Mosca sales representatives and ultimately viewing other options at the IWF woodworking exhibition in 2014, the company decided to add an EAM-Mosca model UHS-Sonixs heavy-duty, side-seal strapping machine to its stable of Mosca banders.
Rent-to-Own Option
o ease cash-flow concerns, Daniel’s Amish® opted to acquire the machine through EAM-Mosca’s rent-to-own program. Daniel’s is able acquire ownership of the strapper over about 2 ½ years at a reasonable monthly rental with use of EAM-Mosca strapping as the only major requirement.
Installed in May 2015, the UHS system is built around the Mosca Sonixs unitizer strapping head. Where the previously installed ROMS strapper can apply about 100 pounds of strap tension, the Sonixs unitizer head can pull up to 500 pounds. Tension levels are infinitely adjustable and the electronic tension control provides excellent consistency, strap after strap. In addition, the Sonixs ultra-sonic sealing system also makes excellent seals with Polyester (PET) strapping, a plastic that resists elongation and maintains applied tension better than polypropylene strap does. In this application, especially with the heaviest loads, PET is preferable.
The UHS purchased by Daniel’s Amish® Collection has a track size of 1150mm (45”) x 2000mm (79”), large enough to accommodate the full range of pieces made by the company. It is set up to operate with Mosca PET1253, 12mm wide by 600 pound tensile strength strapping. The combination provides the throughput needed to meet the plant’s production, while providing the tight, stretch-resistant straps desired to securely package and protect the handsome, high value finished furniture that comprises the heart of their business.
Benefits to Automation Even in Low-Volume Applications
Daniel’s Amish Collection is a good example of a relatively low-volume, custom packager that has found benefit by automating their strapping operation. The versatility of the EAM-Mosca UHS strapping system with PET strapping that truly fits the needs of the packaging requirement, has been the perfect solution to a long elusive packaging problem that directly impacts the delivered quality of its high value furniture products.
EAM-Mosca Corporation provides high-performance strapping system solutions to a variety of industries, including food, graphic arts, mailing, fulfillment, logistics, corrugated, wood, and other industrial or consumer goods. See live demonstrations of Mosca’s banding equipment at the AWFS 2017 woodworking show in Las Vegas, booth no. 7443, July 19 – 22.
EAM-Mosca Corporation provides high-performance strapping system solutions to a variety of industries, including food, graphic arts, mailing, fulfillment, logistics, corrugated, wood, and other industrial or consumer goods. We combine innovative equipment with strapping materials manufactured to maximize machine performance and customer support programs that help our customers meet their performance and productivity goals.
To learn more about any of EAM-Mosca’s other productivity enhancing strapping systems, please call us at 800-456-3420, or email us at info@eammosca.com. You can also connect with EAM-Mosca on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/EAMMoscaCorp), Twitter (www.twitter.com/EAMMoscaCorp), and Facebook and LinkedIn via the links above.