Key takeaways
- A bad inbound week — 460 rejects out of 1,100 — produced the busiest fabrication run of the year.
- About 320 of those rejects had at least three sound panels, which is the number that matters.
- Five outputs worth roughly $2,997, against about $160 for the same board baled.
- The recurring mistake is skipping the first article on a run that looks simple. Flute direction twice now.
The second week of March was a bad one for inbound. Three loads arrived from sites that had stored material outdoors over winter, and the reject rate ran at nearly four times normal. It also turned into the busiest week the cutting table has had.
What arrived
Roughly eleven hundred boxes, of which four hundred and sixty failed grading — damp bottom courses, delamination on one side, crushed vertical edges from stacks that had been too high for too long.
About three hundred and twenty of those had at least three sound panels. That is the number that matters, because a failed box is not failed board.
Five things that came off the table
1 · Corner pads for an appliance shipper
Three thousand four hundred pieces, cut from five-wall panels, replacing virgin die-cut stock that was being trucked in from Illinois. Delivered price about fifty-five per cent under what they had been paying, with no tooling charge because the profile was straight cuts.
2 · Layer pads for a seed processor
Nine hundred pads at 18 × 24 inches, going into the customer’s own bulk boxes for layer separation. Made, in a pleasing circularity, from boxes that same customer had sold us the previous autumn.
3 · Slotted dividers for a glass packer
Four hundred and twenty H-partitions, six cells, cut and assembled. The only part of the week’s run that needed a first article approval, and the only one where we got the flute direction wrong first time — which is precisely why first articles exist.
4 · Display plinths for a Kansas City retailer
Thirty laminated plinths, six panels each, for a temporary retail installation. Comfortably the least industrial thing we made all year and the only one that ever got photographed for anything.
5 · Edge runners for our own outbound
Two thousand pieces for our own use under banding, replacing purchased corner board. Slightly embarrassing that it took a bad week to realise we had been buying something we could make.
| Part | Quantity | Board source | Replaced | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Corner pads | 3,400 | 5-wall panels | Virgin die-cut, trucked from Illinois | $952 |
| Layer pads | 900 | 5-wall panels | New pad stock | $396 |
| Slotted dividers | 420 | Triple wall panels | New partitions | $399 |
| Display plinths | 30 | Laminated panels | Timber and foam board | $690 |
| Edge runners | 2,000 | Offcuts | Purchased corner board | $560 avoided |
| Total | ≈ 320 boxes' worth of board | ≈ $2,997 |
The same board baled would have been worth about a hundred and sixty dollars.
Bad inbound weeks are the ones the cutting table was built for. It is the only part of the building that does better when the boxes are worse.
What we would do differently
Test the flute direction before cutting four hundred dividers. Twice now. The first article process exists precisely because of this and it still gets skipped when a run looks simple.
If you generate damaged board
Photograph it and ask before baling. Cut octabin bodies, boxes with one crushed edge, panels from failed containers — all of it is worth meaningfully more than scrap value, and a surprising amount of it comes back to the same customer as parts.
Questions