advice on preventing shipping damage of metal extrusions

You need to crate it, end of story. Your freight may be loaded and unloaded 10 times before it hits it's destination, and being up to 24' long, the dock workers are not going to handle it with the utmost care. Give it some support with 2x4's and cheap plywood or OSB, and everyone will be happier. Right now you're using the product to take all the stress of loading and unloading, resulting in damage. This should be Shipping 101, are you new at this? An alternative would be to hire a couple flatbeds to do LTL runs around the country and that way they are loaded properly, secured and you have a single load and unload. Either way will add cost, but it sounds like you're already loosing money and providing poor customer service.

 

On one hand your asking for advice on packaging, then you're defending your methods. Dealing with damaged product and returns is time consuming and aggravating for your customers, your staff and the trucking companies. You're very likely to lose customers over it compared to product delivered in undamaged, especially if that customer has a job he ordered your product for and no time for a new one to be shipped. Packaging to get such a delicate product to your customers undamaged should have been one of the top priorities when you decided to sell direct and the dunnage pricing should have been factored in to your pricing strategy already. Right now it appears that you simply shrinkwrap OSB to the sides of the bundle and pray, which is ridiculous.

I'm most definitely not telling you how to run your business, however, if it were me, I'd look at the most common quantity ordered and design a crate around that. Filler is easy to place in it for a smaller quantity. If the entire industry packages them poorly, then an easy selling point would be that we package them properly so you don't have to rely on luck on getting our product undamaged. Once I had the final procedure and packaging in place, I'd then adjust my pricing to sway my customers towards that particular max quantity per crate. If your pricing won't support proper packaging, then you have bigger problems with your direct to user approach.

 

You're going to think Im kidding but Im not.

Duct tape. Since you dont seem to be getting any crush damage, its just the shipping wrap that looks bad, spin $10 worth of duct tape around it and it will look the same when it gets there as it did when you shipped it. KISS.

 

I hope you ain't using them yellow CT trucks. They are rough on freight.

The main problem with LTL is poor handling of freight. Especially a long package like that. Usually it's the first thing to load and everything is thrown on top of it unless they build shelves above it which is common in the LTL business. You can request no stacking of top freight allowed. The LTL company is providing a service and after a pow wow meeting over excessive damage claims. You can get them to take extra care of your freight or lose your business. That's one problem.

The second problem is its' loaded sidewards. The forklift operator has to drag it out of the trailer other than normally grabbing it in the middle. Some will use a chain while others that are lazy and will just pickup one end and hopefully drag it out that way. That's probably how the stretch wrap is getting all tore up and the product scratched.

The product might be cross docked 1-4 times before it even makes it to it's destination which means multiple handling. It has to packaged well because it might be in for a ride of a lifetime!

What I would do is build custom pallets just for side handling. One where a forklift can get under it and even pick it up. Companies have fork extensions just for crates like that. Once you have a sturdy flat pallet surface you can shrink wrap the screeds to it. Or better yet a strip of OSB and band it to the pallet. You can use cardboard in between layers. Less than $20 for a custom pallet to handle $1000-2000 worth of freight is a fair trade off. That's just a $1 or two for each screed.

I'll draw something up to give you an idea.

 

Right now you aren't loading on a solid base. Something like this would give it more strength for handling.

View attachment 31714

 

You also might try packaging them in cardboard too instead.

 

Make a crate for it, and ship it on a flat deck. By putting this into a van your just looking for trouble. Make sure you have some strong points on the crate so the driver an strap it down properly. I'll bet you that will work.

 

ok...as an LTL driver....your best bet is a couple of 2x4's on each end, kinda like a fork hole, and a piece across the bottom for reinforcement about where the tip of the forks would be. on each end. that way when the forks go in they aren't touching the particle board and only hitting 2x4. that's the least expensive way i can think of. i've seen alot of that kind of stuff pretty much weekly and that seems to be the best setup i've seen. the other way i've seen it done is using 2x4's on end (side) and make kinda like runner's on the bottom..(think sleigh) and use a couple in the middle area to strengthen and tie them together. I know at our place we use straps under and around them and then run the fork thru the strap to pick them up and pull them out....now going into a trailer they typically just push them in with forks.
Edit: also i personally pick up from a customer that ships alum. tubing in 15ft lengths, what they do is use 1x6's to box them up, then metal strap a standard 40x48 skid on each end....seems to work out well for them. In 15yrs they've had maybe 10 or so claims I can recall.