01

STEP 1
Your ratchet strap will come like this:

02

STEP 2
Open your ratchet using the lock bracket.

03

STEP 3
While you are pulling the bracket, open the ratchet all the way.

04

STEP 4
Make sure the ratchet is fully extended so the center piece is accessible for the strap to go through. Put the end of the strap through the center piece on the outward opening of the ratchet.

05

STEP 5
Pull the strap as much as possible to make the securement process easier. Then, release the lock bracket.

06

STEP 6
After releasing the lock bracket, continue to open and close the ratchet to further tighten the strap.

07

STEP 7
When your product is secured, close the ratchet all the way and tie a knot if desired to secure excess strap.

The post Hector’s How To: How to use Ratchet Straps appeared first on Larson Packaging Company.

When it comes to shipping products, selecting the appropriate protective packaging is crucial. But time is sometimes of the essence, to help, we’ve assembled an at-a-glance instaguide that explores five key types of protective packaging, highlighting their advantages and best use cases.

BOX AND FOAM PACKAGING

For lightweight or durable items, box and foam packaging offers an economical solution. With the lowest cost and weight, it can hold up to 160 pounds and is easy to use, transport, and dispose of. While it’s the least durable option and suitable for only one trip, it provides the best protection-to-cost ratio for less fragile items. Plastic variants offer waterproofing, and digital printing allows for full-color customization.

HYBRID PACK

A step up from standard boxes, hybrid packs offer moderate cost and improved protection. They can accommodate weights from 5 to 400 pounds and are ideal for medical units, electronic parts, and high-value items requiring one-off shipments. Though single-use, they’re customizable and mostly recyclable, making them perfect for specific shapes or heavier items needing extra protection.

WOODEN CRATES

For heavy or delicate products requiring special handling, wooden crates provide a balance of cost-effectiveness and protection. They can carry 125 pounds or more and last for about 10 trips (though they can be refurbished). While more challenging to transport, they’re suitable for items like server racks, medical equipment, and robotic arms. Some international destinations may require heat-treated wood for phytosanitary reasons.

ATA CASES

These premium cases offer excellent durability and protection for frequent shipping or long-term storage. ATA cases can hold 50 to 400+ pounds and last for hundreds of trips. They’re easy to use, feature toolless entry, and often include handles and casters for easy transport. Ideal for products that need compact storage and durable protection, they’re commonly used for lights, electronics, and musical equipment.

HARD/MOLDED CASES

Another high-end option, hard/molded cases provide superior protection for lighter items (10-250 pounds). They’re watertight, dust-proof, and are often designed to adhere to strict military requirements. Ideal for scientific instruments, aerospace parts, and delicate equipment, these cases can be integrated into the product design. While expensive, their longevity and reusability make them cost-effective for appropriate applications, especially in fields like medical, military, and law enforcement.

Remember, each packaging type offers unique benefits, so consider your product’s weight, fragility, shipping frequency, and budget when making your selection! And don’t forget to download our PDF instaguide!

The post Narrow Down Your Packaging Options Like a Pro appeared first on Larson Packaging Company.

People often assume that you need thick plywood material everywhere on the crate. In reality, the panels surrounding the crate (other than the base) are pretty much function as protection from the elements.

Instead, it’s typically possible to mount heavy equipment on a strong base, then have light-duty panels elsewhere. In these instances, it’s possible to save a lot of money since all these lighter panels function as dust covers that keep dirt and debris from getting inside, or prevent people from seeing the contents.

There are a lot of crates that don’t even have plywood panels — it’s just an open cleated crate like a skeleton.

It all depends on how the crate’s used. If they’re going to be stacking them, then we have to take that into consideration. But if they’re just picking it up with a forklift, a pallet jack or something similar and moving it from point A to point B, you probably don’t need to invest in super-strong panels.

Can you give examples of features or materials that are often over-specified or over-engineered, leading to wasted resources?

Types of plastic and foam in general.

For example, you’ll have a customer who’s looking at mil-specs trying to make it look like they’re knowledgeable. So you end up wasting time and resources looking for and researching a 50-year-old military spec that’s long-superseded, and sourcing fancy (and often unnecessarily expensive) materials.

Or, if someone asks for brand names such as Velcro, there may be a much more inexpensive generic hook and loop equivalent that will do the job equally well. If you were to specify Velcro or equivalent, then I could use the equivalent.

When you meet with someone to design a crate, a case, or some other packaging, do you usually advise them on the best materials for what they need to have shipped?

Not at all. Usually, what happens is a customer will say: “Hey, I want use Velcro on this I, I want to hold my component down with Velcro and I reply OK we can use hook and loop no problem.”

I use general terms that people are going to understand. And then when I come back with a concept, I say these are the materials we’re using.

This is best practice.

When I design something for a customer I have our capabilities already considered; when a customer designs something, they’re just trying to figure it out the best they can. You know, they’re not trying to figure out for manufacturability or how to use the best materials.

What strategies would you recommend to businesses to reduce costs when ordering a crate without compromising quality or functionality or safety?

I think the best thing to do is to let us do our job and design it for you.

A recurring theme is people being overly specific or rigid.

And customers can have a poor grasp of design. They don’t really know how to make things manufacturable, how to best exploit the advantages of our machinery or how to use the materials that we have. Some will have special call outs (or things like that) that we’re not able to use.

When we’re helping them save time, money and labor, we’re never trying to go cheap on design. Instead, we’re trying to make things more manufacturable.

Is there a certain design flaw or type of crate that breaks more often? Like, is there like an Achilles heel for crates or anything like that?

When someone is putting something heavy inside of a crate — say, a big rectangular item with four feet in the corners — and the base isn’t loaded correctly, the weight of the unit will break the palette and you’ll end up with holes in your deck because all the load goes where the unit’s feet are.

You need to place skids very precisely in a situation like that, otherwise you’ll have issues when it’s loaded or if it’s dropped. Also, it’s not going to work if we use a plywood base (instead of some other substrate) when we know we are working with a heavy weight.

Or there’s the opposite issue where something is, say, 2,000 pounds but we are putting in a floater deck that’s rated for 5000 pounds. You just know that’s way too hard for that unit.

Are there any little-known tips or tricks you would suggest to make packaging sturdier, better, or more efficient? Is there a certain design aspect or detail would always want add?

I like ratchet straps. I like floater bases. If you have a sturdy enough internal floater on anything, you could have a standard palette and just insert a different internal floater inside that crate. You could have model A for 1,000-pound unit, model B for a 2,000-pound unit and so on.

I think it would be cool if we figure something like that out.

In your experience, what aspects of a crate are worth spending extra money on to ensure best performance or longevity?

One of the things that is important to us is our customer’s time.

So, if a customer were to buy a crate and it took four hours to put together and take apart every time it was used, it’s extremely inconvenient. It’s labor-intensive and ultimately that’s costly. We also know that customers will be disinclined to use it unless they absolutely have to.

But that’s the type of solution some packaging suppliers come up with.

Instead, we’ve become really good at toolless solutions for crates: something that just has a couple latches on it.

Then one person can rapidly load and unload it instead of a team of five people taking several hours.

Or a solution that anyone can use. For example, if you’re sending something over to the UK they might not have American standard hardware for our fasteners. What if they have to open something up for Customs? They waste time searching around for special tools. In the worst scenario they might break open your crate to inspect the contents.

A toolless solution fixes that problem because it makes it easy to open the crate, take the unit out, check it, replace it in the crate and close everything up. There’s no hassle.

Can you explain how investing in certain crate features can lead to long-term cost savings and benefits?

It’s a similar situation.

A small investment is maybe a couple hundred dollars for something like a toolless system. But that couple hundred dollars could really add up when you’re buying hundreds of crates.

On the other hand, you don’t have to hire five people for packing — you only need one person. And it doesn’t take hours to load and ship each crate, it might take only minutes. So, because of that salary that you’re saving, you’re able to spend a little bit more on the product yet still come out vastly ahead in the long-run.

Are there design elements that can help improve the ease of transport for crates?

There’s a four-way entry crate that makes it possible for a forklift to pick up a crate from the front or from the side.

If you build something that has a large footprint, it makes it difficult to ship sometimes. Typically, you would have to request a special truck to pick it up.

If we have a crate with a four-way entry, that gives the shipper more flexibility. They might be able to more easily pick it up from the end and fit it on a more normal type of truck.

Are there any innovative design features or trends in crate design that you think will become more popular in the future?

We are currently working on a cartridge system of rack crates. I’m looking forward to see how that hits off with a couple of our customers.

Essentially, we’ve developed a crate shell, and it’s the same crate, but there’s five different cartridges that go inside that are able to support cargo of different weights.

Each cartridge is rated for different weight, so the customer will buy the crate, buy up to five different cartridges based on their shipping needs. They’ll no longer have to order (and stock) five different crates.

The crate itself is heavy duty, so it capable of going back and forth between them and their customer.

So next time, if they need to ship a unit that weighs 2,000 pounds more than their usual units, they just swap in a cartridge that’s rated for that heavier weight. They’ll save money by having one crate, but five different cartridges.

Finally, can crates ever be reusable? What makes them reusable? Are there worries about sturdiness or other things?

The real issue is always the people handling the crates. If your truck driver is careless about handling, then things are going to bounce up and down. Forklift drivers will also pop holes in the crates.

That’s where the real damages occurs. It’s always in shipping; in-transit. It’s not anything that the people handling the crates within the warehouse do.

If we ever have to replace anything, we know how we build our crates — they’re easy to take apart and refurbish. So it’s a relatively easy fix, but the equipment being carried might get damaged. You always want to avoid that.

The post Q&A with LPC’s Design Manager – Jason Valentine appeared first on Larson Packaging Company.

STEP 1
To accompany the wing nut, always use a flat washer and a lock washer.

STEP 2
Place the flat washer first, then the lock washer.

STEP 3
Place the wing nut last.

STEP 4
Use your hand to tighten the wing nut as much as you can.

The post Hector’s How To: Use Wing Nuts appeared first on Larson Packaging Company.

By implementing streamlined business processes, our “customer success team” approach, and achieving critical milestones over the last two years LPC has taken its on-time delivery performance to a consistent 98%+ (one of the best in the U.S. West Coast) and has also introduced an industry-first real shipping guarantee, backed by a late penalty.

Not only is the appointment of Chris and Dan to this role an important step to achieve our ambitious goals it is intended to change widely held perceptions that packaging suppliers can’t be trusted to meet their promises.

Both Chris and Dan bring a wealth of commercial and technical experience to this role having held senior positions at Larson Packaging Company and other well-known companies in the packaging industry. This makes them uniquely qualified to operate as an extension of both the sales, customer service and design teams when field-based activities are required.

“This is a significant change for how we approach support for our customers”, says Larson Packaging Company COO, Scott Grills. “Customers want more than just the occasional visit and delivery of fresh donuts from salespeople. Most actively try to avoid it”, Scott laughs. “What customers really want—and deserve—is access to highly competent people like Chris and Dan who can come onsite to gather detailed product and packaging specifications and requirements, and provide valuable packaging advice without the sales pressure. Their job is not selling, it is to support LPC in the field, help our customers, and learn more about the real, and unmet needs of the market!

Chris and Dan will be available to customers wanting face-to-face support in the Southern and Northern California regions respectively.

They can offer support for a diverse range of activities, including general packaging/shipping advice, engineering and technical advice for in-house packaging designers, detailed product specification requirements, and product packaging troubleshooting and solution reviews. In addition, it is an opportunity to gain better insight into customer needs to guide our strategy—from the market directly. This service is free. Contact the LPC customer service team to schedule a visit!

The post New Field Specialist role delivers hands-on technical knowledge and on-site support for LPC customers. appeared first on Larson Packaging Company.

STEP 1
With a hammer, place the claw between wood and long side of the klimp.

STEP 2
Apply pressure on the head of hammer and pull.

STEP 3
Pull the klimp off completely.

The post Hector’s How To: Take off a Klimp appeared first on Larson Packaging Company.

The load, weight, volume, size, handling requirements and use and the outer packaging of the items being shipped, all impact on the type of pallet you need.  If the load is too big for the pallet, the outer boxes can get crushed.  If it’s too small, then you are wasting expensive shipping space and increasing the risk of load shift. 

Then there’s the construction method and materials.  Pallets can be designed with a variety of deck board configurations — tops and bottoms, number, width, overhang, and spacing. In addition, plywood or oriented strand board (OSB) can be used as deck material (otherwise known as a “panel deck” pallet) to offer potential savings.

These pallet examples are indicative of what we call the hidden costs of packaging.  We have come up with a total of seven hidden costs that can easily be completely invisible to inattentive purchasers. You can read the full article here.

Free Pallet Check

A LPC Pallet Check is one easy way to avoid the hidden costs of packaging in your business.  We will tell you if your current pallets are the best fit-for-purpose or if there are savings on offer. If you have other custom packaging, we’ll be happy to review them too.

We’ll come to you or organize for a pallet to be delivered to our fabrication facility. One of our pallet designers will then inspect your pallet and get back to you with our findings. If appropriate, we will even give you a new test pallet at our cost for evaluation. The LPC Pallet Check is free and comes with no strings attached.

Drop us an email at customerservice@larsonpkg.com to arrange your Free LPC Pallet Check.

Pallets from Larson Packaging Company

At Larson Packaging Company, we’ve been selling standard and custom pallets for many years. While the industry standard 48-40 one-way heat-treated pallet is our speciality, we also manufacture block pallets with or without bottom deckboards or a full-perimeter base and 100% economical shipping and warehouse pallets.

We can deliver our standard LPC in just two days, or same day for a small extra rush fee. Better still, combine your pallets with your other LPC custom packaging requirements for a streamlined and frictionless vendor experience. Speak to a LPC team member to find out more.

The post Why your current pallet may be costing you money appeared first on Larson Packaging Company.

STEP 1
Klimps have two sides, the open ended short side and a longer side.

STEP 2
Position the short side on 1 x 4 of the loose panel.

STEP 3
Apply pressure by hand or is needed use a hammer to close.

ALL DONE
Installed and ready to go.

The post Hector’s How To: Installing a Klimp appeared first on Larson Packaging Company.

One particularly susceptible category are lithium batteries as they can easily short circuit and catch fire. This is why they are classified as dangerous goods under class 9, United Nations. Other components susceptible to electrical discharge damage include integrated circuits, microprocessors, memory chips and assembled electronic devices.

How to protect components from ESD

The two factors that have the greatest impact on preventing an electronic discharge during storage and transit are:

1. Design of the interior packaging
2. Choice of foam

Design Considerations

While the outer packaging is designed to protect from external impacts and the elements, it is the interior foam insert that protects the component most from shock, vibration and discharge. The foam insert should be designed to perfectly hold the components in place and prevent movement within the box or crate.  It’s also important for the foam insert to isolate and protect individual parts or sub-assemblies. For example, nonconductive material should always be placed between lithium batteries to stop movement and prevent them from touching and potentially discharging.

Our engineers are specialists in designing custom ESD foam packaging for control programs to protect delicate electronic components from ESD damage and maintain product quality and reliability.

We can design and fabricate all types of ESD foam packaging and inserts in a variety of shapes and sizes, including sheets, blocks, and custom-cut shapes to deliver the appropriate shock and vibration protection requirements of your sensitive electronic devices.

And we can do it for all types of packaging including corrugated and plastic boxes, hard cases and ATA cases.

Foam choice

There are many different types of foam that can be used for ESD applications.  Your packaging engineer will be able to tell what foam is best for your application taking into account the components being shipped, their sensitivity to shock and vibration and level of ESD protection needed.

Here are a few of the more popular ESD foams used.

Conductive Crosslinked foam

An effective replacement for silver ESD bags and acts as a faraday cage when an item is fully encapsulated. Not recommended for batteries since it will drain them if positive and negative terminals are both in contact with the foam.

Pink Antistatic Polyethylene and Polyurethane foams

These standard foams contain additives to provide long life antistatic properties and prevent friction based electrical charge generation.

Black Static Control foam

Provides the same protective ESD properties as pink antistatic foam but without the shelf life limitations. Though Static control and conductive foams may look and feel similar, static control foam is not known to drain batteries.

Download our EDS Capabilities sheet

Foam solutions for ESD (Electrostatic discharge) applications, designed to keep sensitive equipment and instruments safe from damage.

Learn more

The post Foam solutions for ESD (electrostatic discharge applications) appeared first on Larson Packaging Company.

The AICC is the largest association of corporate members in the corrugated and paperboard industry. By joining, we’ve solidified our commitment to independent packaging manufacturers and advocating for policies and initiatives that foster growth, innovation, and vitality within our sector.

As part of a broader industry coalition, the AICC partners with influential groups such as the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the International Corrugated Packaging Foundation (ICPF), the International Corrugated Case Association (ICCA), and the Corrugated Packaging Alliance (CPA). These collaborations strengthen the association’s influence and ensure our voices are heard on matters that affect the manufacture of protective packaging.

Moreover, the AICC has spearheaded groundbreaking co-location and co-branding initiatives that provide immense value to members. Events like SuperCorrExpo, Corrugated Week, and the FBA Safety Awards exemplify the association’s commitment to facilitating knowledge-sharing, networking, and recognition within the packaging community.

By joining the AICC, we’ve aligned ourselves with an organization that champions the interests of independent packaging companies.

We look forward to actively participating in the association’s initiatives, leveraging its resources, and contributing to the continued growth and success of the corrugated and paperboard industry.

The post Larson Packaging Company Joins Forces with The Independent Packaging Association appeared first on Larson Packaging Company.