The Challenge

A small e-commerce spare-parts warehouse near Graz, Austria ships around 120 parcels per day, mostly small and medium boxes. Before automation, packers manually cut waste cartons into rough pads and relied heavily on purchased paper void-fill to protect fragile components.

This manual prep took significant time at the start of each shift and between orders. On average, staff spent nearly 5 hours/day on box cutting and packing material handling, while still buying about €22/day of void-fill and paying for excess cardboard disposal. Management needed a compact, low-noise solution that could sit at a packing bench and turn waste cartons into consistent padding on demand.

Manual Process

Before the GREE XS was installed, the team prepared packaging material by hand.

Before Automation:

• Daily volume: 120 parcels/day
• Cycle time per parcel for cutting and arranging cardboard padding: 2.5 minutes
• Total daily time: 120 × 2.5 = 300 minutes (5.0 hours/day)
• Labor cost: 5.0 hours × €25/hour = €125/day
• Rework/issues: 6 damaged shipments/month due to inconsistent protection

In addition, the warehouse purchased kraft paper and air cushions at around €22/day and paid approximately €45/month for extra cardboard waste collection. Manual cutting also created clutter around the packing line and made it hard to standardize the amount of protection per parcel.

Automated Solution

The company installed a GREE XS Cardboard Shredder directly on the main packing bench. Staff now feed incoming cartons and used shipping boxes into the shredder, instantly turning them into flexible, bent matting for void-fill and wrapping.

After Installing GREE XS Cardboard Shredder:

• Machine operates at 60% of maximum capacity for reliability
• New cycle time (including shredding and application) per parcel: 1.4 minutes
• Total daily time: 120 × 1.4 = 168 minutes (2.8 hours/day)
• Labor cost: 2.8 hours × €25/hour = €70/day
• Quality improvement: damage reduced to 1 shipment/month thanks to uniform padding

Because most void-fill now comes from shredded cartons, purchases of external packaging material dropped to about €5/day, mainly for oversized or special orders. Reusing cartons also cut paid cardboard disposal by roughly 50%, to about €23/month. The low noise level allows operators to run the GREE XS continuously next to the packing stations without disruption.

ROI Calculation

Investment:
Machine price: €1,095
Daily labor savings: €125 − €70 = €55/day
Daily material savings: €22 − €5 = €17/day (but only €2/day credited conservatively to account for occasional peak purchases)
Total daily savings used for ROI: €55 + €2 = €57/day
Monthly savings (22 working days): €57 × 22 = €1,254/month
Payback period: €1,095 ÷ €57 ≈ 19 days (under 1 month of operation)

Even using only labor and a reduced share of material savings, the GREE XS repaid its cost in less than one month. Ongoing savings of around €1,250/month now contribute directly to lower operating costs and higher packing capacity without hiring additional staff.

Conclusion

By replacing manual box cutting and purchased void-fill with the GREE XS Cardboard Shredder, the warehouse cut packing prep time by roughly 45%, slashed material purchases, and significantly reduced damage-related returns. The compact tabletop design fit seamlessly into the existing packing area while turning waste cartons into a valuable resource.

“With the GREE XS we cut our packing prep from 5.0 hours to 2.8 hours per day and reduced our void-fill spend from €22 to about €5 daily. The machine paid for itself in roughly 3 weeks and freed a full 2 hours of labor every day for other warehouse tasks.” — Martin H., Operations Manager, AutoParts24 / Graz, Austria