Packaging

Half of the board ordered by FFI members is being supplied as counted sheets

Friday 31. July 2015 - According to a recent survey carried out by Fachverband Faltschachtel-Industrie e.V. (FFI), almost half of the folding carton board purchased by its corporate members is already being bought on the basis of the new system for ordering and supplying board by sheets.

With 565,000 tonnes, the corporate members of the FFI accounted for about two thirds of the production volume of the German folding carton industry in 2014. The FFI has now found out via a survey that the board for 46% of the production volume (260,000 tonnes) was ordered by sheets, was supplied in the form of counted sheets and was invoiced by nominal weight. In the past, these folding carton companies as well as the rest of the industry ordered, received and invoiced their raw material almost exclusively by weight.
Half of the corporate members participated in the association’s survey, which was carried out in June/July 2015. More than 78% of the companies that responded indicated that they have already switched to the new sheet system partially or entirely.
“The fact that such large volumes were reported to us only one year after the switch was made to the sheet system might have come as a surprise to us. It didn’t, however, because we have been aware for a long time now from our numerous discussions within the FFI that the switch to sheet counting is an important element in optimisation of the supply chain between the board industry and folding carton manufacturers”, Christian Schiffers, FFI Director, reveals.
The need for supply chain optimisation and working capital reduction is attributable to market pressure: it is, for example, the customers of the folding carton industry who want to be supplied a precise number of folding cartons to a greater and greater extent – with underdelivery not being acceptable.
These developments among customers were, however, increasingly incompatible with the principle that dominated for many decades on the raw material side of ordering folding carton board by nominal weight and invoicing it by the actual weight supplied – in addition to supply quantity tolerances that were last approved in 1998.
The two industrial associations that represent the folding carton manufacturers and the board manufacturers – FFI and VMK Vereinigung Maschinenkarton im Verband Deutscher Papierfabriken e.V. – therefore reissued their joint “FFI/VMK technical guidelines / quality characteristics for folding carton board”, in which the members of their associations are given the recommendation that they switch to the ordering and delivery of sheets.
SHEET NUMBER TOLERANCES SPECIFIED FOR THE FIRST TIME
In doing this, the two associations were entering new territory, however: in connection with the change in the system, the board and folding carton industries had to specify tolerances for compliance between the number of sheets on the pallet and the pallet labels and delivery notes. In this context, test phases were arranged in 2014, in order to obtain information about demanding tolerance limits for sheet numbers that were, however, realistic in everyday business operations.
In the final analysis, the following tolerance limits for sheet numbers were included in the “FFI/VMK technical guidelines / quality characteristics for folding carton board” (date of issue: 20. March 2015):
Sheet number tolerance (agreed deviation between the number of sheets actually delivered and the information provided on the pallet label / delivery note / invoice)
In the case of orders = 5 tonnes, the sheet number tolerance is ± 1 % per package; a sheet number tolerance of ± 1 % is allowed for the total number of sheets supplied (order).
In the case of orders > 5 tonnes, the sheet number tolerance is ± 1 % per package; a sheet number tolerance of ± 0.5 % is allowed for the total number of sheets supplied (order).
HALF THE DELIVERY VOLUME TOLERANCE
An important section in the quality characteristics for folding carton board covers the acceptable delivery volume tolerances, which were also updated when the technical guidelines were revised. A substantial reduction by half on average was agreed with respect to this parameter too. In the smallest order category up to 1 tonne, overdelivery of 20% was allowed in the past. Following the revision of the quality characteristics, the maximum overdelivery in the case of such small amounts is now 10%.The maximum overdelivery allowed in the order category between more than 1 and up to 5 tonnes is 6%; with orders of more than 5 tonnes, the maximum overdelivery is only 2.5% now. Determination of acceptable under- and overdelivery continues to be based on weight.