DS Smith provides greater efficiency in mailing and ensures seamless traceability of all packaging processes

For the North Rhine Material Testing Office (MPA NRW), DS Smith has developed a packaging concept that makes more efficient the monthly mailing of around 110,000 radiation monitoring dosimeter films including accessories.

The new packaging in three sizes saves time and money and establishes for MPA NRW’s customers a convenient and likewise secure return of monitoring films that have been worn. Straightened, loaded and electronically documented, the packages are fully automated in letter format in a state-of-the-art packaging and dispatch line in the new building of the official personal monitoring office of the MPA NRW in Dortmund, Germany.

The integrated packaging concept from DS Smith simplifies many times over the mailing of the radiation monitoring films and accessories at the North Rhine Material Testing Office (MPA NRW). The Personal Dosage Measuring Office in Dortmund provides individuals who are exposed to radiation in their profession with dosimeters that document by means of films the exposure to radiation in the workplace. The approximately 12,000 organizations affected send the worn monitoring films of their workers monthly for evaluation to the MPA NRW and get back in return new film material together with the examination results from the previous month.

For the packaging, DS Smith’s designers developed an F-flute corrugated board solution, which, unlike previous foil pockets, survive undamaged both the outbound and return shipping. Provided with pull strips and self-adhesive strips, the packaging enables MPA NRW’s customers easy handling when opening and re-closing. The shipping packaging in the DIN long letter format is available in outside heights of 10, 20 and 50 mm and thus is optimally adapted to different content quantities. This ensures both the lowest possible postage costs and a secure mailing of the sensitive transported material. In larger packagings with up to around 150 monitoring films per delivery, additional foil blisters prevent slippage of the goods. An imprint of the MPA NRW logo on the outside provides a consistent brand identity.

Optimally aligned with the new packaging solution is the fully automated dispatch line, which DS Smith conceived in close collaboration with the automation specialists PKM Packaging GmbH in Pirmasens. “The facility provides all the steps in a single process, from straightening the corrugated blanks to bonding the mailing packages,” is how Matthias Hornung, Business Support Manager at DS Smith describes the innovation. “And this occurs although the smallest of the three packaging solutions has an outside height of only 10 mm. We are setting new standards with this. To date there has been no lower packaging that has been mechanically assembled,” Hornung emphasizes proudly.

Via the MPA NRW’s software interface, the machine receives the individual orders in random order, then selects the appropriate packaging size in each case, loads the mailing boxes with dosimeter film, prints in-line all the delivery documents and evaluation sheets and finally discharges the packages postpaid ready for mailing. The electronic documentation of all the steps ensures a seamless traceability at all times. Compared to the previously partly automated assembly, the efficiency of the packaging process has increased here significantly. The new facility has been providing its service since August 2015 in the new building of the Material Testing Office in Dortmund.

source: Packaging and fully automated dispatch channel for 110,000 radiation monitoring dosimeter films monthly