The Challenge

An FMCG plant near Brno, Czech Republic, ships over 450 pallets of bottled beverages per day across three shifts. Pallets were transferred by forklift from the end-of-line conveyor to two standalone semi-automatic wrappers located 40 meters away.

Each pallet required manual film attachment, monitoring, and cutting, taking 3–4 minutes including driving and queuing. With peak demand, forklifts queued at the wrappers, creating up to 45 minutes/shift of lost forklift time and limiting effective capacity to about 18 pallets/hour. Heavy mixed-load pallets, often close to 3000 kg, occasionally shifted in transit, causing 2–3 damaged pallets per week and costly rework.

The packaging manager needed an in-line solution that would keep up with a high-speed line, remove manual handling around the wrapper, stabilize heavy loads, and prove a clear ROI versus adding more forklifts or operators.

The Solution

The plant selected the SMARTWRAP S3 In-line Fully Automatic Pallet Wrapping Machine and integrated it directly into the existing roller conveyor between palletizer and dispatch buffer. The machine was configured to run at around 60% of its maximum 30–40 pallets/hour capacity to ensure reliability and maintenance headroom.

The installation used the standard 2000 mm slewing bearing turntable, Siemens PLC with 7-inch touchscreen, and 300% pre-stretch Power Roller Stretch Plus film system. The automatic film cut and clamp removed all manual film handling, while photoelectric height detection and programmable wrap recipes (including the Pallet Grip System) secured mixed-height pallets up to 2400 mm.

Pallets now move automatically on stainless steel conveyors through the wrapper without forklift intervention until after wrapping, eliminating the previous wrapping bottleneck.

ROI Calculation

Before – Standalone wrappers:

• Daily volume: 450 pallets/day across 3 shifts
• Average handling + wrap time: 3.5 min/pallet (drive, queue, manual wrap, cut)
• Total forklift/operator time: 450 × 3.5 = 1575 min ≈ 26 h/day
• Staffing: 2.5 FTE dedicated (forklift + wrapper operators) at ~€23/h loaded cost
• Daily labor cost: 26 h × €23 ≈ €598/day
• Film usage with low pre-stretch: approx. 0.30 kg/pallet at €2.2/kg → €0.66/pallet → €297/day
• Weekly damage/rework: 2 pallets/week at ~€150 each → €300/week ≈ €60/day
• Total relevant cost before ≈ €955/day

After – SMARTWRAP S3 in-line:

• Machine run rate at 60% capacity: ~32 pallets/hour, comfortably matching line output
• Operator time: line operator supervises recipes; forklift only for outbound pickup → about 1.0 FTE effective at €23/h
• Daily labor cost: ~11.5 h/day × €23 ≈ €265/day
• 300% pre-stretch and optimized wrapping: approx. 0.19 kg/pallet at €2.2/kg → €0.42/pallet → €189/day
• Damage/rework reduction: over 70% fewer incidents, now ~€18/day
• Total relevant cost after ≈ €472/day
• Daily savings ≈ €955 − €472 = €483/day

Investment:
SMARTWRAP S3 in-line pallet wrapper and conveyor integration: €24,999
Net daily savings: ≈ €480/day
Payback period: €24,999 ÷ €480 ≈ 52 days → payback in under 3 months even assuming ramp-up and maintenance.

Results

Integrating the SMARTWRAP S3 removed the end-of-line bottleneck, increased sustainable throughput to around 32 pallets/hour, and freed more than one full-time equivalent of labor. Forklift traffic and queuing around the wrapping area almost disappeared, while the Pallet Grip System significantly reduced load shifts on 3000 kg pallets.

With clear savings in labor, film consumption, and damage, the project achieved a payback in well under a quarter and stabilized a critical node in the FMCG plant’s logistics flow.

“Moving to in-line wrapping with the SMARTWRAP S3 completely changed our dispatch area. The forklifts now flow, our film use dropped, and the wrapping station is no longer the pace-setter for the whole line.” — Petr Novak, Packaging Manager, Brno Beverages s.r.o., Czech Republic