Molded Fiber’s Cushion Cubes™ helps Brass Light manufacturer brighten up its packaging operation.
100% recycled paper cushion packaging solution replaces foam packaging peanuts
Started over 25 years ago, Brass Light Gallery has grown into one of the brightest spots in the decorative lighting market. In fact, the company is one of America’s leading designers and manufacturers of decorative light fixtures for residential and commercial spaces. Brass Light offers a wide array of high-quality products, and can tailor each light fixture to meet individual design interests and architectural requirements. And by selling directly to the end user, customers are spared the trouble of dealing with middlemen.
Of course, when you produce a superior product like Brass Light does, you want to ensure that it reaches the customer in mint condition. Consequently, the packaging material that Brass Light uses has to meet very stringent performance standards to minimize the potential for damage during shipping.
According to Jeff Perkins, COO at Brass Light, the company relied on a variety of different packaging materials; each had certain shortcomings.
“We’ve used polystyrene peanuts, newsprint, brown paper, and foam in place,” said Perkins, who in the early days of Brass Light juggled direct responsibility for shipping among his other duties. “All of these materials have strengths and weaknesses. Because none of them is ideally suited for every purpose, we had to keep all of them on hand.”
The quality of the packaging became an issue, however, when the company began producing its Alabaster Collection, a high-end lighting category that includes wall sconces, ceiling pendants, and chandeliers. The products in the Alabaster Collection are both heavy and fragile, and require extra attention during the packaging process. Brass Light was primarily using polystyrene peanuts for packaging, but due to the Alabaster collection’s unique properties, the packaging process became particularly time-consuming and painstaking. In addition, on all too frequent basis, vibration from the delivery truck would cause shifting in the package, resulting in product damage.
The need to find an alternative packaging material for the Alabaster Collection was apparent. But even without this delicate collection as a catalyst, Brass Light realized that an alternative to polystyrene peanuts was necessary for a number of reasons.
“The peanuts can be a nuisance to the customer because they tend to blow around once a package is opened,” said Perkins. “I would often hear complaints about the peanuts blowing around our customers’ job sites. And since we’re dealing directly with end users, this was unacceptable.”
“What’s more, customers complained the peanuts emitted an unpleasant odor.”
Given these deficiencies, along with Brass Light’s desire to find a packaging material that was more environmentally friendly - something recyclable or constructed of recycled materials – the company put out the call for help. Ultimately, Brass Light worked with Molded Fiber, a UFP Technologies brand, to help solve this problem.
Molded Fiber, a leading designer and manufacturer of interior packaging solutions made from 100% recycled paper, provided Brass Light with a unique product called Cushion Cubes™. The cube-shaped protective packaging material is made from 100% recycled paper that are mixed with water and molded to shape. The process is also known as molded pulp or molded fiber. The Cubes provide packaging support for irregular shaped and fragile products – an accurate description of Brass Light’s offerings.
Cushion Cubes are a high-strength, sound alternative to chemical/foam packaging. Their shape gives the Cushion Cubes superior energy-absorbing properties. Cushion Cubes compress under impact, and have memory characteristics that maintain an effective cushion. Cushion Cubes also eliminate the need to wrap a product or stuff a carton with several types of packaging materials since they are a multi-functioning product - blocking and bracing, cushioning and/or void fill.
Cushion Cubes also dispense easily like loose fill, but their textured surface and contoured shape make them lock together, producing low product migration and very little settling.
To test the product, Brass Light personnel shipped packages out to various locations around the US. Based on the great results, Brass Light decided to bring Cushion Cubes in-house.
The effectiveness of Cushion Cubes at Brass Light Gallery has been evident in a number of ways. First and foremost, the Cubes provide excellent protection, not only for Brass Light’s fragile Alabaster Collection but also for the majority of the company’s other custom products. These results are achieved with much less effort and training expended by Brass Light.
“If we pack the box correctly, we are over 99 percent sure that the product is going to stay in the same position as it was packed,” he said. “With peanuts we were still able to pack product effectively, but it required much more work. We had to force as many peanuts as possible into the box by making sure we stuffed them very tightly. Then we had to shake the box, let the peanuts settle and add the Brass Light product that was housed in an additional corrugated carton. Then it was a matter of adding more peanuts to the carton to fill the voids. The Cushion Cubes allow us to get the same or better protection in much less time. It was standard practice to use two boxes for everything we shipped. With the cushion cubes, 75 percent of everything we ship can go out in just one box. “
Also, compared to foam-in-place, which is a good cushioning material, the Cubes are “low-tech” and, therefore, require no special training and advanced skills to use.
“And of course, they’re reusable, recyclable, and don’t blow around.”
Using Cushion Cubes, Brass Light has realized cost savings. “We haven’t done an exact cost analysis, but we’re confident that Cushion Cubes pay for themselves by eliminating the inner box that we were forced to also use to protect our fixtures.”
Before settling on the Cubes, the company did consider using foam-in-place as an option. Unfortunately, like peanuts, the foam-in-place also utilizes a solvent that produces an unpleasant odor.
Foam-in-place also presented a more serious problem. “The process of making foam-in-place generates significant heat,” Perkins explained. “We have a highly finished product. The lacquer dries to the touch in hours but takes about a week to fully cure. If we use foam-in-place and there is some leakage of foam, the finish would obviously be damaged. A problem less noticeable than leakage but just as critical is that while the foam is still warm, it can cause a reaction with the lacquer finish and cause damage to the product’s finish.
“What’s more, we make a lot of outside lantern fixtures that contain delicate art glass in them. Because the foam-in-place expands, it can potentially break the glass.”
Feedback from Brass Light’s customers has been very positive (“The complaints that we heard with peanuts have essentially disappeared,” Perkins said.) The feedback from Brass Light personnel has been similarly encouraging.
“Our packaging people really like the Cubes,” he said. “They don’t blow all over the place, they don’t leave a mess, they are versatile, user friendly, and not a lot of skill and extra training is necessary to use them.
“Even if we occasionally don’t package a box just right, the Cushion Cubes will still protect the product. The Cubes give us a margin for error that we don’t necessarily have with other packaging materials.”
Brass Light still uses other packaging materials, including polystyrene and cornstarch peanuts, even a machine that produces air pillows in plastic. Yet the company’s satisfaction with Molded Fiber’s Cushion Cubes is such that they use Cubes for 60 to 70 percent of all packages and close to 100 percent of their large and fragile products.
