Sealed Air: Automated Autobag machine supports e-commerce fulfillment productivity and carbon reduction
30 May 2022 | Sealed Air
At Packaging Innovations 2022 in Birmingham, UK, Sealed Air showcased the Autobag 850S machine for mail order fulfillment amid rapidly expanding e-commerce demand. We spoke to Steve Dougan, EMEA platform director for fulfillment at Sealed Air, about how this solution can increase output from existing facilities and reduce carbon footprint.
This is Joshua Paul, reporter for Pack of 2022.
I'm here at the sealed air stand with Steve Duggan, who is the fulfillment platform director for Amir.
Welcome.
So today you're showcasing your A bag for e-commerce.
In what ways does this machine tap into the expanding market for e-commerce?
Sure, absolutely.
So, yep.
Good morning.
Yes, so the 850S A Bag 850S system we have here is, is ideally suited to, supporting the ever expanding needs of, of the fulfillment sector.
By providing a, a, a semi-automated or fully automated, solution, really can help, our customers to.
Increase their output from their existing facilities.
We can increase output by 2 to 3 times with pack rates between 250 and 500 packs per hour.
And it's, it's very flexible.
Various bag size options available, so it really can be very easily integrated into an existing customer setup.
And, and again also fully automated with the warehouse management system and integratable with that system there.
And in what ways can this automation benefit sustainability credentials, particularly carbon impact?
No, absolutely.
So, first off, the material we use is 68% recycled content and fully recyclable.
It's also a lightweight solution compared to other packaging, packaging options, and so you have a, a lower, carbon footprint in that aspect.
But also with automation, again, by increasing output of existing facilities, it can really help to lower the or maintain the carbon footprint of a, of a site at a level and, and actually delay the need for companies to expand to larger, less carbon or, or greater carbon footprint for facilities.
Of course, one of the big themes of this year's show is the introduction of the UK plastic packaging tax.
How easy are you finding it to source recycled material for this application?
No, absolutely, so that's definitely been a challenge, and er and we have fully compliant tax er.
Packing tax solutions, and, but absolutely, recycled content is, is a premium at the moment.
We're very fortunate with being part of the wider, er group of business, we're in very, a number of different areas, and we're actually utilizing materials from other product lines that we're recycling, and, and bringing and, and reusing within our own materials as , so.
Benefiting from that side, but we're also, we have partners we're working with and suppliers of recycled content that we're, we're bringing in, so absolutely been a challenge, but we, we've got continued supply and, and we have fully er tax compliance solutions available.
And just finally, can you give us some examples of what er like markets, applications, products, this Abag solution is er designed for?
Absolutely, so predominantly we're in the, the apparels market.
It's er ideally suited as a, you know, a, a secondary packaging for er non-protective solutions, so products like you know.
Apparels, shoes, accessories, that, that sort of market sector is where we see real er majority of our business.
But it is very flexible, as I say, you know, different size bags, it doesn't need to be so large, we can do smaller size.
We have other solutions and we can really tailor the solution to, to our customers' needs.
That's brilliant Steve, thanks for your time.
Thank you very much.
