The art of stuffing and stripping containers

A dietician who is overweight or a police officer who has a habit of driving through a red light when off duty. Just a few examples of people who put their credibility on the line. At Selmers, we always help our clients to work in a lean way which implies we have to do the same ourselves. Stuffing and stripping containers is just one example of how we put our money where our mouth is, while helping customers save money on the fly.

Smarter and safer

When it comes to installing a production line or building a factory, bringing in all the materials is not the first thing that comes to mind. Apparently neither do customers, as they made few demands on the stuffing and stripping of containers for years. That work used to be done by whoever happened to have time for it. About twelve years ago, we decided this had to change as part of our continuous development philosophy. The first step was to thoroughly analyze the entire stuffing and stripping process. We then investigated how things could be made smarter and safer.

Container plan

One of the first improvements was to keep a small path in the container accessible to prevent people from having to climb over stuff. Moreover, using our engineering design software, we always create a container plan in advance which contains all relevant dimension and weight data. We also decided to screw things down for transport instead of nailing them down. This causes less damage to the container and is less labor-intensive for the unloaders. We even include the right drill bits and a packing list for their convenience.

Sleds on sliding plates

Furthermore, we take into account the local conditions at the customer’s site, which may be located in a desert or at a Norwegian fjord or even in the jungle. Because this is usually a construction site with little infrastructure and often muddy roads, we have created a kind of sled that can be unloaded more easily on sliding plates. There are visual instructions with that as well. Because everything must be loaded upright or in a straight line for safety reasons, we called in the help of our own engineers who, as always, took action almost immediately.

Many compliments

Finally, we have not only developed our own crates as an alternative to the often clumsy pallets, but also a frame to better protect vulnerable equipment such as electrical cabinets during transport. As part of our standard installation, erectioning & commissioning service, our employees even travel to the customer’s site whenever an opportunity arises, to ensure that all stripping procedures are followed. As a result, this part of our work too has become a specialty, with many advantages for the customer. Via our own employees, who are regularly on-site, we have received many compliments from customers’ supervisors about all these convenience and safety measures in recent years.

Huge savings

We recently managed to get all the material into 84 containers when installing a plant. We bet that people in the financial department of that particular client were enthusiastic as well, since in a comparable previous project, a total of no less than 120 containers were still needed. With a container price of some 2,000 euros, at the time,  a lot of money was saved even before the actual installation had begun!

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