$60,000 Savings in One Year:
Irwin Seating Company Case Study

Shipping objectives

• Reducing excess  
• Controlling costs
• Improving ergonomics and employee safety

Situation
Irwin Seating Company, a public seating manufacturer based in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has been providing seating for venues including movie theaters, auditoriums, arenas and convention centers since 1907. Today, the ISO 9001 certified company has manufacturing facilities around the world, as well as in the United States.
Not surprisingly, shipping is an important part of the company’s manufacturing process, and Irwin Seating needs versatile, cost-effective pallets that can help make the process more efficient.

Solutions
Reducing excess
In alignment with lean manufacturing principles, Irwin Seating strives to reduce excess in all steps of the manufacturing process. When the company purchased approximately 600 DuraLite Pallets in 2004 to replace standard wood skids, lean thinking was one of the key reasons for doing so. The pallets have allowed Irwin Seating to be more efficient in the following areas:

• Waste reduction – Because wood pallets typically last just two to three turns, they constantly need to be replaced, repaired, and eventually scrapped. Unlike wood pallets, DuraLite Pallets aren’t meant to be disposable – they’re built for the long haul.
• Weight reduction – DuraLite Pallets weight just 20 lbs., compared to wood pallets, which can range from 50 to more than 100 lbs.
• Travel reduction – Because the pallets are mirror images and therefore allow for nestable stacking, one stack of DuraLite Pallets equals about four stacks of the same amount of wood pallets. This means that travel expenses can be reduced, because more empty pallets can be stacked in one return vehicle.
• Labor hour reduction – For the same reason travel expenses are reduced, labor can also be reduced, because it takes less driving time to move the more efficiently stacked DuraLite Pallets and less time to unload them.
• Storage space reduction – With roughly 75 percent of storage space freed up, again due to the nestable stacking feature, DuraLite Pallets allow for a more efficient use of space.

Controlling costs
By using DuraLite Pallets, Irwin Seating has reduced its overall shipping costs. Reductions in weight, travel expenses, storage space, and labor hours have added up to a 12-month savings of approximately $60,000. And because the pallets are adjustable, they can be adapted – rather than replaced – to fit the varying cube sizes that the company uses. This also means there are no disposal costs of the durable, reusable pallets. Maintenance costs are better managed as well, because, unlike wood pallets that contain nails and sharp splinters, these pallets do not damage floors or shipping surfaces.

Improving ergonomics and employee safety
Because DuraLite Pallets are lighter than wood pallets, employees are less likely to suffer injury due to moving the pallets. And because the pallets are made of HDPE plastic, employees aren’t exposed to the splinters and protruding nails found in wood pallets.

Results
“We started to use DuraLite Pallets in October 2004,” says purchasing manager Gerald Moore, “and as of October 2005, our year-to-date savings is $60,000.”

DuraLite Pallets have helped Irwin Seating continue to show improvement in its shipping processes, by reductions in waste, better-controlled costs, and improved employee safety. “I’ve been measuring the results,” Moore says, “and they’ve been significant.” This process improvement is expected to continue.
“We just ordered 200 longer pallets,” Moore says. “And with these, there will be an eight-month payback.”

 

©2005 21st Century Plastics Corp.