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• Zotefoams plc
• Dairy Farmers of Britain Ltd
• Lyreco
• Affordable Window Systems
• Sheridan Fab
• Speedframe
• Netto

IT’S A WRAP AT SHERIDAN THANKS TO ORION

One of the UK’s leading manufacturers of work surfaces has been so delighted with their investment in state of the art stretchwrapping technology from Midlands-based Orion Packaging Systems (UK) Ltd that they have purchased another machine within just months of the first one.

Sheridan Fabrications Ltd, of Normanton near Wakefield, manufacturers and supplies a large range of wood, granite, quartz and composite worktops which are destined for homes, hotels and restaurants across the UK. The company’s customers include household names such as B&Q and Magnet.

The pieces of worktop – an average of 3m in length but sometimes much longer – need to be protected from the elements and their environment on their journey to sales outlets and the company had previously been using a process of shrink wrapping by hand to achieve this. However, as Operations Director Paul Speake explained, this was far from an ideal solution.

“The manual shrink wrapping involved members of staff wrapping the worktops by hand using a heat gun and shrink wrap. However, not only was this a very slow and labour-intensive process, but wrapping consistency was variable and there were significant potential health and safety implications for our staff from the presence of hot equipment and gas canisters, not to mention the amount of manual handling involved.

“Quite simply, the process did not deliver either the level of protection or the quality image we wanted to portray as a company, and we therefore underwent a radical rethink of how we approached the wrapping issue.”

He continued: “We needed a machine which was fast, reliable, durable economical and versatile enough to cope with differing widths and lengths of product and still produce the same quality of wrapping regardless. When we spoke to Orion it was clear they understood our needs and could offer what we needed.”

The machine supplied by Orion was a HRW90 & 125-S orbital wrapping machine, which conveys the product lengthways through a wrapping arch where wrap is automatically applied before the product is conveyed out again ready for shipping.

Paul Speake added: “We knew immediately the Orion product was installed that we had made the right choice. The whole process was so much smoother and the wrapping was exactly what we wanted every time.

“Even since then the demand on the machine has grown so much that we have purchased a second orbital wrapper from Orion. We ship up to 200 pieces per order so the machines are in constant action but they have to date proved highly reliable and efficient. They are easy to use and our health and safety worries have been completely allayed.”

Established in 1987, Orion is today one of only a handful of UK-owned manufacturers of end of line stretchwrapping equipment for palletised and unpalletised goods. Orion offers a full range of automatic and semi-automatic systems, available either as stand-alone units or fully integrated into the production line. It has also diversified into materials handling, giving customers access to the complete offering for product movement and packaging prior to despatch.