As a home grown, family-owned and operated business, Northern Tool + Equipment came from humble beginnings. Over the last 40+ years, they’ve prided themselves on putting their customers first and being the ultimate destination for hard-working do-it-yourselfers and professionals. Inevitably, with success and growth comes change, and Northern Tool eventually found themselves in need of a packaging solution that could meet their growing demand, while saving them money and reducing touch points across their warehouse. They also needed a solution that could integrate into their brand new Automated Storage and Retrieval System (ASRS), and wanted to reduce their carbon footprint.
Having already worked with Packsize successfully in the past, Northern Tool knew they were the right fit for this next phase of their growth.
“About three years ago, we chose the Packsize EM7 machine to make right-size boxes for our larger products in order to reduce DIM weight charges,” said Randy Woody, Director of Distribution Engineering at Northern Tool. “That was a very successful project for us… we look for partners, we don't look for vendors. Packsize has proven to be a very good partner for us. So that led us directly into wanting to continue that partnership as we continued into this new adventure for us.”
Northern Tool’s main asks when reaching out to Packsize were to reduce touches throughout the packaging process, cut down on waste to improve customer experience, and reduce DIM weight and shipping costs. This quickly led them to choose one of Packsize’s most automated solutions: The X5. The X5 machine system provides all of the necessary functions to cut, crease, glue, erect, and label right-sized boxes in seconds so they are ready-to-pack.
“For this project, the X5 was kind of a natural fit because the X5 is just so flexible,” said Chris Gross, Regional Sales Manager at Packsize. “It can pair with goods-to-person, AMRs (Autonomous Mobile Robots), it can be box first, box last, etc… and with the automated picking system that Northern Tool was putting in, the X5 allowed them to induct right-sized cartons to their goods-to-person stations and it eliminated a lot of touches while increasing throughput.”
Before implementing Packsize and an ASRS, Northern Tool’s packaging process was very manual and time consuming. When an order came in, manual pickers would push heavy carts across their three-level picking module, grabbing the products for the order. Sometimes, an order could end up being picked into a tote on all three levels before it was complete. Next, the order would make its way to a packing station, where a packer would try to find the best box size to fit the order, then pack it into the box along with void fillers, such as packing paper or air pillows. Finally, the order would be taped up, labeled, and make its way to the shipping truck.
“Before Packsize was brought on board, our old process was outdated and everything about that process was more or less too many touch points, a lot of manual touches, and a lot of manual labor,” said Patrick Rhyne, Regional IT Manager at Northern Tool. “And what we needed was faster automation, a quicker solution that would give us everything that we wanted for faster fulfillment and get to the customer quicker.”
After installing Packsize, the packaging process looks much different. Now when an order comes in, it immediately flows down virtually to the distribution center and into the automated system. The Packsize X5 determines the exact right-sized box for the order and makes a box in less than six seconds. At the same exact time, a picking robot grabs the products for the order and both the products and the right-sized box travel across a conveyor system to a packing station. There, the employee packages the order, adds a packing slip, and sends it on its way. The automated system then closes the box, applies a label, and sends it out the door. All of this happens in minutes with just one human touch throughout the entire process.
“What was really cool about this project that was able to help Northern Tool is the X5 allowed them to create the box upstream of their goods-to-person system,” said Gross. “It really allowed them to eliminate a lot of touches in the pack process downstream because the X5 is the only system that's able to create perfectly sized cartons that can be routed to pick ports from a goods-to-person system.”
With the X5 solution in place, Northern Tool was successfully able to reduce touchpoints, cut down on waste, significantly reduce shipping costs, and improve their end customer experience.
From the very beginning, it was important to both Northern Tool and Packsize that this was more than just a vendor providing a service. Packsize wants to be a true partner in the packaging process and, with more than 20 years of experience on the front lines of packaging automation, we consider ourselves experts in our field. We also know that our clients are experts in their own industries, and so working together to implement the right solution for the job is crucial.
“The very unique thing about Packsize when it comes to packaging is, we don't just have one machine that we're coming in and saying, ‘Hey, how does this fit in this area?’” said Gross. “We're able to really analyze the process and take one of our many machines or many software platforms and say, ‘What fits what the customer needs? Is it a non-conveyable project? Is it a conveyable project? Do we need cartonization software? Do we need box first, box last?’ So the solution is really a result of all the diagnostic processes that we go through to see what the customer is trying to accomplish.”
As a partner, Packsize wants to see our clients succeed and grow – and we are prepared to grow with them. At the start, Northern Tool was looking for a solution to create custom boxes for their larger, bulkier products. The EM7 was the perfect fit for that project. However, as their business grew, along with their automation needs, we were ready to accommodate that growth with another solution – and we were able to integrate it into the workflow that made the most sense for their unique distribution center.
“We chose Packsize because they were a trusted partner from our first project with the EM7,” said Rhyne. “With integrations and everything that we dealt with, with the support teams to put that in place, we knew that the X5 would be a great product and we could tell that it would provide efficiencies and reduce touch points and everything that we needed from a product to help with our fulfillment.”
One of the biggest benefits clients experience with Packsize is world-class 24/7 customer service and support. Northern Tool was no exception here. As part of the X5 installation, Packsize also employs a field service engineer to be on-site at Northern Tool every day, to ensure the machine stays operating smoothly.
“I think for Northern Tool, one of the most important factors in the business decision in addition to the partnership that we already had with Packsize, was just the trust that we had, knowing that the solution that was presented to us was the right one, knowing that we had the backing of a company that was going to be there with us for the long-term, and knowing that if we face challenges down the road, we weren't going to be out on an island alone,” said Woody. “We were going to have the backing that we needed to get through any challenges that we had and be able to push forward and make it through.”
With smaller boxes, fewer touchpoints, and a packaging partner with them every step of the way, Northern Tool is now able to save time and resources, while exceeding customer expectations with every order.
To learn more about how you can take your automation to the next level and streamline your packaging process, reach out to a Packsize representative today.
