Industry Terms and Definitions

The fol­low­ing list of indus­try terms and def­i­n­i­tions is pro­vided cour­tesy of the ORBIS Cor­po­ra­tion.  All rights are reserved.

Indus­try Terms Indus­try Def­i­n­i­tion
30 x 32 AIAG Foot­print 30″ x 32″ foot­print, as spec­i­fied by the Auto­mo­tive Indus­try Action Group. Used as the stan­dard pal­let or bulk con­tainer foot­print for use in the auto­mo­tive indus­try. Con­tain­ers are sized to effi­ciently max­i­mize the pallet.

40 x 48 GMA Foot­print 48″ x 40″ foot­print, as spec­i­fied by the Gro­cery Man­u­fac­tur­ers of Amer­ica. Used as the stan­dard pal­let or bulk con­tainer foot­print in the food indus­try. Con­tain­ers are sized to effi­ciently max­i­mize the pal­let. This pal­let foot­print was devised to max­i­mize space in 48′ and 53′ trail­ers and some ocean containers.

45 x 48 AIAG Foot­print 45″ x 48″ foot­print, as spec­i­fied by the Auto­mo­tive Indus­try Action Group. Used as the stan­dard pal­let or bulk con­tainer foot­print in the auto­mo­tive indus­try. Con­tain­ers are sized to effi­ciently max­i­mize the pal­let. This pal­let foot­print was devised to max­i­mize space in 48′ and 53′ trailers.

Antimi­cro­bial Antimi­cro­bial pro­tec­tion seeks to inhibit the growth of bac­te­ria and mold that can cause stains, odors and prod­uct deterioration.

AS/RS “Auto­mated Stor­age and Retrieval Sys­tem” A dis­tri­b­u­tion method used by many manufacturers.

Auto­mated guided vehi­cle (AGV) Pro­vide robotic trans­port of goods through­out a vari­ety of man­u­fac­tur­ing and spe­cialty environments.

Bulk Con­tainer Bulk con­tain­ers are used for trans­port­ing large vol­umes of mate­ri­als, heavy parts or large “bulky” parts in assem­bly, work-in-process, stor­age appli­ca­tions. They accom­mo­date a wide vari­ety of prod­ucts, rang­ing from tex­tiles to heavy auto­mo­tive parts. Bulk con­tain­ers are avail­able in col­lapsi­ble, straight-wall and nestable styles. Cus­tom inte­rior dun­nage can be designed to fur­ther pro­tect the prod­uct being shipped.
Card­holder Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion holder used on hand-held, bulk con­tain­ers or rack­ing sys­tems. Accom­mo­dates iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and inven­tory cards.

Cel­lu­lar Man­u­fac­tur­ing Man­u­fac­tur­ing approach with work cen­ters that have total capa­bil­i­ties needed to pro­duce an item or group of sim­i­lar items. Con­trasts with those in which an item moves through mul­ti­ple work cen­ters to completion.

Class A Used pri­mar­ily in the auto­mo­tive indus­try, any prod­uct des­ig­nated as vis­i­ble to the occu­pant of a vehicle.

Closed-Loop A well-defined cir­cuit of ship­ping and deliv­ery points. Indi­cates that the loops of the sup­ply chain are closed, allow­ing reusable pack­ag­ing to travel back and forth. This closed cir­cuit is crit­i­cal so the con­tain­ers and pal­lets that flow through the sup­ply chain do not get mis­di­rected or lost.

Col­lapsi­ble Con­tainer Stack­able hand-held or bulk con­tainer with hinged side­walls that fold in to col­lapse, after use or when empty, to occupy less space in stor­age or return trans­port. Offers effi­cient KD or “knock-down” ratio. Avail­able in hand-held and bulk con­tain­ers styles.
Compression-Molding Com­pres­sion mold­ing con­sists of a two piece mold which pro­vides a cav­ity hav­ing the shape of the desired molded part. Depend­ing on the type of mate­r­ial used, either molten ther­mo­plas­tic mate­r­ial is placed in a cooled mold or ther­moset mate­r­ial is place in a heated mold. Once the appro­pri­ate amount of mold­ing mate­r­ial is loaded into the lower half of the mold the two parts of the mold are brought together under pres­sure. The com­pound is com­pressed into a con­tin­u­ous mass that is held until it can be removed with­out dis­tor­tion when the mold is opened.

Con­duc­tive Mate­r­ial is a con­duc­tive mate­r­ial that is a ther­mo­plas­tic polypropy­lene mate­r­ial based upon car­bon black. Sur­face resis­tance of less than 1.0 x 10 4 ohms or a sur­face resis­tiv­ity of less than 1.0 x 10 5 ohms/square. The elec­tri­cal prop­er­ties are per­ma­nent and unaf­fected by washing.

Con­tainer See hand-held or bulk con­tainer. Also referred to as a tote or bin.

Con­ver­sion The process of imple­ment­ing plas­tic reusable pack­ag­ing for total cost sav­ings across a sup­ply chain. Usu­ally replaces cor­ru­gated boxes and wood pallets.

Cost Jus­ti­fi­ca­tion Cost/benefit analy­sis used by com­pa­nies when imple­ment­ing reusable pack­ag­ing to com­pare costs and demon­strate sav­ings over the life of the pack­ag­ing.
CPG Con­sumer goods pack­ag­ing company.

Creep The dimen­sional change with time of a mate­r­ial under load, fol­low­ing the ini­tial instan­ta­neous elas­tic deformation.

Cross-Docking Facil­ity A shared center/warehouse that is used to con­sol­i­date ship­ments from var­i­ous sup­pli­ers. Prod­uct can be sorted and staged prior to going to the appro­pri­ate man­u­fac­turer, based on their pro­duc­tion lev­els. Cross dock­ing facil­i­ties are highly inte­grated with inven­tory needs, to deliver prod­uct only when needed. Elim­i­nates idle inven­tory and unnec­es­sary stor­age at the manufacturer.

Cus­tom Inte­rior Dun­nage Cus­tom designed and fab­ri­cated pro­tec­tive pack­ag­ing that is used inside a con­tainer, in a rack or on a pal­let to fur­ther pro­tect prod­uct being shipped. Can be con­structed of foam, fab­ric or plas­tic. Some­times referred to as “dun­nage” or “inserts”. Can be return­able, reusable or expendable.

Cycle Time The amount of time needed to fin­ish one cycle of an oper­a­tion. Please note: cycle time is not the same as takt time. Takt time is the time allowed to pro­duce one of a prod­uct at the rate the cus­tomer demands. When cycle time equals takt time, prod­ucts are made in Single-Piece Flow.

Dis­tri­b­u­tion Refers to the move­ment of prod­ucts within a sup­ply chain, from sup­plier to man­u­fac­turer, man­u­fac­turer to dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­ter (DC), dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­ter to retail out­let or retail directly to the consumer.

Divider Sheet An extruded 100% plas­tic sheet used between lay­ers of prod­uct being shipped on a pal­let. Avail­able in mul­ti­ple foot­prints to match the pal­let and top frame being used. Acts to pro­tect prod­uct and sta­bi­lize the pal­let load.

Dun­nage See Cus­tom Inte­rior Dunnage.

Elec­tronic Dis­charge A trans­fer of elec­tro­sta­tic charge between bod­ies at dif­fer­ent elec­tro­sta­tic poten­tials caused by direct con­tact or induced by an elec­tro­sta­tic field. ORBIS offers train­ing in the prin­ci­ples of elec­tro­sta­tic dis­charge and how ORBIS con­tain­ers com­bat sta­tic elec­tric­ity. Also called “ESD”.

Ergonom­ics An applied sci­ence con­cerned with the char­ac­ter­is­tics of peo­ple that need to be con­sid­ered in design­ing and arrang­ing things that they use in order that peo­ple and things will inter­act in the most effec­tive and safest manner.

ESD–Pro­tec­tive Con­tain­ers man­u­fac­tured in ESD-protective mate­ri­als pro­tect its con­tents from sta­tic elec­tric­ity and elec­tro­sta­tic dam­age. These mate­ri­als are designed to absorb the charge and pass it to the ground, bypass­ing the con­tents of the con­tain­ers and reduc­ing costly prod­uct damage.

Expend­able Pack­ag­ing One-time use pack­ag­ing. Requires dis­posal after one trip.
Exte­rior Dimen­sions The longest, widest and high­est OUTSIDE dimen­sions to define the total space occu­pied by the packaging.

Exter­nal Cube The space a con­tainer requires for stor­age, deter­mined by the foot­print x height.

Extru­sion Extru­sion is defined as the act of shap­ing a mate­r­ial by forc­ing it through a die by using a screw extruder. Extru­sion is employed in the pro­duc­tion of film, pipe, sheet, pro­files and coat­ings on wire, paper and other substrates.

FDA Mate­r­ial Col­ors These mate­r­ial ingre­di­ents, used in the man­u­fac­ture of fin­ished goods, are approved as safe for direct con­tact appli­ca­tions with food. These mate­ri­als have been tested and ver­i­fied by the FDA and are listed in 21 Code of Fed­eral Reg­u­la­tions.
Flex­i­ble Man­u­fac­tur­ing Sys­tem A man­u­fac­tur­ing sys­tem that enables the pro­duc­tion of a vari­ety of items, in small quan­ti­ties, at a low cost per unit. Char­ac­ter­is­tics of a flex­i­ble man­u­fac­tur­ing sys­tem are often quick changeover and rapid response time.

Foot­print The area on a sur­face cov­ered by some­thing. Usu­ally base mea­sure­ments on outer base of length and width (i.e. 48″ x 45″ or 12″ x 15″)

Foot­print The pro­jected area upon a hor­i­zon­tal plane describ­ing the out­er­most dimen­sions of length and width of a pal­let, con­tainer or con­tainer system.

Gay­lord Large bulk con­tainer used to store and trans­port materials.

Grav­ity Con­vey­ors A non-powered con­veyor which moves mate­r­ial for­ward at a straight decline, down a spi­ral path or with slight man­ual assis­tance, horizontally.

Hand-Held Con­tainer Con­tain­ers that an oper­a­tor can pick up and carry to a work­sta­tion or assem­bly line. Both the weight of the con­tainer and its con­tents are man­age­able for one per­son to safely and com­fort­ably han­dle, carry and use.

Haz­ard Analy­sis of Crit­i­cal Con­trol Points (HAACP) The Haz­ard Analy­sis Crit­i­cal Con­trol Points (HACCP) reg­u­la­tion is used to elim­i­nate haz­ards in biotech­nol­ogy, phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal, med­ical device, food and bev­er­age, seafood and dairy pro­cess­ing facil­i­ties. Used to secure the safety of food prod­ucts dur­ing pro­duc­tion, pro­cess­ing, pack­ag­ing, stor­age and trans­port. Selected reusable plas­tic pack­ag­ing and pal­lets are designed to com­ply with HACCP require­ments and offer opti­mum hygiene, due to con­trolled raw mate­ri­als, con­trolled pro­duc­tion and easy cleaning.

Hot stamp Heat trans­ferred, per­ma­nent iden­ti­fi­ca­tion stamp for plas­tic con­tain­ers and pal­lets. Can be cus­tomized accord­ing to the user’s spec­i­fi­ca­tions. Allows for easy visual inven­tory man­age­ment and facil­i­tates deliv­ery to appro­pri­ate des­ti­na­tion, as well as return to the appro­pri­ate source.

Injection-Molding Plas­tic is injected, under pres­sure, into a closed cav­ity mold. The mate­r­ial is cooled to ensure that it main­tains the exact shape of the mold. This process pro­duces a solid wall, solid core part.

Inside Dimen­sions The inside length, width and height dimen­sions of a given pack­age.
Inter­nal Cube The use­ful area inside a con­tainer, deter­mined by width x depth x height.
ISO Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion The des­ig­na­tion a man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pany receives when they meet the ISO (Inter­na­tional Stan­dards Orga­ni­za­tion) require­ments in their indus­try. It ensures that high-quality prod­ucts will be pro­vided, on a con­sis­tent and accu­rate basis. Requires peri­odic for­mal audits and renewal.

Just-In-Time Just-In-Time pro­duc­tion sys­tem oper­ates on the premise that prod­uct will be deliv­ered, “just in time” for assem­bly or fin­ish­ing. Fre­quent deliv­er­ies of small quan­ti­ties on time. It seeks to con­sol­i­date the num­ber of sup­pli­ers and reduce the dis­tance between sup­plier and final destination.

Kaizen The phi­los­o­phy of con­tin­ual improve­ment. Kaizen sup­ports the idea that there is always room for improve­ment even if sub­stan­tial improve­ment has just occurred.
Kan­ban When a card or sheet or other tool is used to autho­rize pro­duc­tion or move­ment of an item.

Knock­down (KD) Col­lapsi­ble Con­tainer See Col­lapsi­ble Container.

Lean Man­u­fac­tur­ing Phi­los­o­phy An Eng­lish termed coined to describe the Japan­ese man­u­fac­tur­ing phi­los­o­phy of con­tin­u­ally reduc­ing waste through­out the work­flow in order to increase pro­duc­tiv­ity and prof­itabil­ity. Empha­sizes total sys­tem effi­ciency, con­tin­u­ous improve­ment, value added activ­ity and respect for people.

Lean Pack­ag­ing The role of reusable pack­ag­ing in a lean envi­ron­ment. It is a strong cat­a­lyst towards prac­tic­ing lean prin­ci­ples in an operation

Life Cycle A sequence of stages span­ning the life­time of a prod­uct, process, ser­vice, facil­ity, or enter­prise, from incep­tion to final use and dis­po­si­tion. Could include extrac­tion, acqui­si­tion, man­u­fac­tur­ing, reuse and disposal.)

Life Cycle Costs Finan­cial impacts asso­ci­ated with life cycle stages of a mate­r­ial, prod­uct, process, ser­vice, facil­ity or enterprise.

Load Capac­ity: Dynamic The num­ber of pounds a pal­let will effi­ciently and safely hold in a dynamic application.

Load Capac­ity: Sta­tic The num­ber of pounds a pal­let will effi­ciently and safely hold in a sta­tic application.

Logis­tics Activ­i­ties to move incom­ing mate­ri­als and dis­trib­ute fin­ished prod­ucts to the proper place, at the desired time and in the opti­mal quantities.

Mate­ri­als Han­dling Process of devel­op­ing and imple­ment­ing man­ual, mech­a­nized and auto­mated sys­tems to move prod­uct and mate­ri­als through­out a facil­ity or sup­ply chain.
Mate­ri­als Man­age­ment The col­lab­o­ra­tive man­age­ment func­tions that sup­port the com­plete cycle of mate­r­ial flow. Begins with the design and pur­chase of the product/material and con­tin­ues with the work-in-process, ware­hous­ing, ship­ping and dis­tri­b­u­tion activ­i­ties required to out­put it in is fin­ished state.

Mod­u­lar­ity Con­structed with stan­dard­ized units or dimen­sions, for max­i­mum flex­i­bil­ity.
Mod­u­lar­ity A sub­set of a foot­print. In a pal­letized load, those smaller con­tain­ers, which when fit­ted together, form a unit load.

Nest Ratio The abil­ity of a con­tainer or pal­let to nest inside one another, when empty. Reduces return trans­porta­tion costs and improves stor­age space uti­liza­tion. Indi­cated in a ratio (i.e. 3:1)

Nestable, with Bail Drafted con­tainer with metal or plas­tic “bail”. When the bail is engaged, con­tain­ers can stack atop each other. The bail is open, they nest in each other.

Nest-Only, with Attached Lid Drafted con­tain­ers that fit inside each other when empty, or on top of each with an attached or detached lid. When nested, they par­tially fit inside one another with­out dam­ag­ing or dis­tort­ing either one. Offers a nest ratio.

OEM Orig­i­nal equip­ment man­u­fac­turer
Opti­miza­tion See Sup­ply Chain Optimization.

Out­sourc­ing Exter­nal con­tract­ing of ser­vices. Can include trans­porta­tion, logis­tics, con­tainer man­age­ment or manufacturing.

Pal­let Flat, durable, portable plat­form used to sup­port, trans­port and store all types of dif­fer­ent con­tain­ers and prod­uct. Reusable plas­tic pal­lets are light­weight, reusable and recy­clable and are avail­able in a wide vari­ety of foot­prints. Nestable pal­lets are gen­er­ally used in dis­tri­b­u­tion appli­ca­tions, because of their favor­able nest ratio for reduced return trans­porta­tion costs and bet­ter stor­age. Rack­able pal­lets are used in sta­tic rack stor­age and work-in-process appli­ca­tions, because of their high load capac­ity and rack­a­bil­ity. Stack­able pal­lets are used in gen­eral work-in-process and sta­tic stor­age. Allows pal­let loads to be stacked atop another pal­let load.

Poly­eth­yl­ene (PE) Poly­eth­yl­ene (PE) is one of the most widely used plas­tic mate­ri­als and offers excel­lent chem­i­cal resis­tance, easy of man­u­fac­tura­bil­ity, strength, tough­ness and dura­bil­ity. PE is suited for typ­i­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing envi­ron­ments as the mate­r­ial remains sta­ble at tem­per­a­tures encoun­tered in cold win­ters (below 0 degrees) and hot sum­mers (just over 120 degrees F). At tem­per­a­tures exceed­ing 120 degrees F, the mate­r­ial becomes rub­bery, thereby reduc­ing the strength properties.

Polypropy­lene (PP) Polypropy­lene (PP) is in the same fam­ily as poly­eth­yl­ene (PE). This plas­tic mate­ri­als offers excel­lent chem­i­cal resis­tance and ease of man­u­fac­tura­bil­ity that remain sim­i­lar to PE. PP’s advan­tages over PE includes its great stiff­ness and ele­vated use tem­per­a­ture. Depend­ing on the appli­ca­tion, PP mate­ri­als can retain strength at tem­per­a­tures up to 150 degrees F.

Pull Sys­tem A pro­duc­tion sys­tem in which items are man­u­fac­tured based on actual real-time needs from down­stream oper­a­tions (final assem­bly or equivalent)

Push Sys­tem A pro­duc­tion sys­tem in which items are man­u­fac­tured based on the­o­ret­i­cal or fore­casted needs of down­stream operations.

Push-Pull Device An attach­ment added to a stan­dard fork­lift that allows prod­uct loads on slip sheets to be pulled onto its solid plate, for easy trans­port and move­ment around a ware­house or dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­ter. For more infor­ma­tion, visit www.cascorp.com.
Push-Pull Point The point on the sup­ply chain where the switch from “push” to “pull” is evident.

Q1 Cer­ti­fi­ca­tion Des­ig­nated by Ford Motor Com­pany as hav­ing high lev­els of qual­ity in prod­ucts and ser­vices that deliver sus­tained con­tin­u­ous improve­ment to Ford and its suppliers.

Rack­able Pal­let Rack­able pal­lets are designed for sta­tic stor­age in rack­ing sys­tems. They can offer unsup­ported rack capac­i­ties up to 3,000 lbs.

Radio Fre­quency Iden­ti­fi­ca­tion (RFID) Sys­tems that read or write data to RF tags that are present in a radio fre­quency field pro­jected from RF reading/writing equip­ment. Data may be con­tained in one (1 ) or more bits for the pur­pose of pro­vid­ing iden­ti­fi­ca­tion and other infor­ma­tion rel­e­vant to the object to which the tag is attached.

Return­able Pack­ag­ing See Reusable Packaging.

Return­able plas­tic con­tainer (RPC) See Container.

Reusable Pack­ag­ing Con­tain­ers, pal­lets and pro­tec­tive inte­rior dun­nage that are designed for reusabil­ity and/or return­abil­ity in a given appli­ca­tion. Plas­tic pack­ag­ing offers durable, light­weight prop­er­ties, and fully recy­clable at the end of its use­ful life.

ROI Return on invest­ment. Reusable pack­ag­ing has an ROI of 6 — 18 months, depend­ing on application.

Rotation-Molding Pow­dered plas­tic resin is placed into a mold. The prod­uct is formed as the resin fuses from the cen­trifu­gal force on the heated mold while spin­ning at a very high rate of speed.

Seat Belt Sys­tem Used for effi­cient, sta­ble stack­ing and trans­port of full pal­let loads. The seat belt retrac­tor is placed on the pal­let and the buckle is placed on the top cap. Can be placed on 2 or 4 sides and elim­i­nates the need for stretch wrap­ping or banding.

Secu­rity Holes Open­ings located on both the con­tainer and the lid for plas­tic ties, which secure the inter­nal con­tents of the con­tainer from theft and damage.

Self-Guided Vehi­cles (SGVs) Self-guided auto­mated vehi­cles that bring mate­ri­als from the load­ing docks to assem­bly lines, with the use of on-board intel­li­gence. Enables improved mate­r­ial track­ing because the intel­li­gence is located at the vehicle.

Six-Sigma At many orga­ni­za­tions it is a mea­sure of qual­ity that strives for near per­fec­tion. Six Sigma is a dis­ci­plined, data-driven approach and method­ol­ogy for elim­i­nat­ing defects (dri­ving towards six stan­dard devi­a­tions between the mean and the near­est spec­i­fi­ca­tion limit) in any process — from man­u­fac­tur­ing to trans­ac­tional and from prod­uct to service.

Slip Sheet A flat plas­tic sheet, avail­able in vary­ing thick­nesses, placed beneath a load of prod­uct to eas­ily move loads in a ware­hous­ing or dis­tri­b­u­tion appli­ca­tion. Used pri­mar­ily in sys­tems that uti­lize forkifts equipped with a push/pull device. Slip Sheets have one to four tabs that run the length of the sheet. These tabs bend to cre­ate easy-to-grasp edges that are “pulled” by the push/pull device. Can be used with or with­out a pal­let, and per­for­mance char­ac­ter­is­tics will vary by application.

Stack­base In an retail envi­ron­ment, 4×4 dis­play base that is used in other free-standing environments.

Stack­base End Unit In an retail envi­ron­ment, the end cap unit that is used at the floor level.

Stack-N-Nest Con­tain­ers that stack when full or with a cover, and nest when empty. Or, when rotated 180 degrees to each other, these con­tain­ers can be stack on top of another. When not rotated, they nest inside each other.

Sta­tic Dis­si­pa­tive Mate­r­ial is a polypropy­lene mate­r­ial that is on the upper end of the dis­si­pa­tive range. Sur­face resis­tance of great than or equal to 1.0 x 10 8 ohms but less than 1.0 x 10 11 or a sur­face resis­tiv­ity greater than or equal to 1.0 x 10 9 ohms/square but less than 1.0 x 10 12 ohms/square. Elec­tri­cal prop­er­ties are affected by humid­ity and mate­r­ial has a shelf life of 5 years.

Stor­age Refers to the hold­ing of prod­uct at a spe­cific loca­tion, for antic­i­pated use in production.

Straight-Wall, Stack-Only or Stack­able Straight-wall con­tain­ers that can be placed on top of each other. The bot­tom of the first con­tainer rests on the top, outer rim of the sec­ond con­tainer. Con­tain­ers fits securely with another with­out dam­ag­ing or dis­tort­ing the con­tain­ers or contents.

Struc­tural Foam-Molding Plas­tic and nitro­gen gas are injected into a closed cav­ity mold. The part is cooled to cre­ate the exact shape of the mold. The com­bined use of these mate­ri­als cre­ate a cel­lu­lar core that forms a solid skin.

Sup­ply Chain A well-defined net­work of ship­ping and deliv­ery points within a cer­tain indus­try, from raw mate­r­ial man­u­fac­turer to the con­sumer. Con­sists of var­i­ous loops between dif­fer­ent points on the chain. Also referred to as the value chain. The sup­ply chain is typ­i­cally com­prised of mul­ti­ple col­lab­o­rat­ing com­pa­nies that design, pro­duce, deliver and ser­vice the goods. Rec­og­nizes all activ­i­ties asso­ci­ated with the flow and trans­for­ma­tion of goods, from raw mate­r­ial to end-user.

Sup­ply Chain Man­age­ment The sci­ence of inte­grat­ing the flow of goods and infor­ma­tion from ini­tial sourc­ing all the way through to deliv­ery to the end user. Key activ­i­ties within this end-to-end process include pur­chas­ing, pro­duc­tion plan­ning, order pro­cess­ing and ful­fill­ment, inven­tory man­age­ment, trans­porta­tion, dis­tri­b­u­tion, and cus­tomer service.

Sup­ply Chain Opti­miza­tion The aggres­sive and con­tin­u­ous process of seek­ing opti­mal resource allo­ca­tion and oper­a­tional prac­tices to result in sup­ply chain effi­ciency. Usu­ally results in reduced costs over time, due to reduced labor costs, less waste and stream­lined operations.

Ther­mo­form­ing: Sin­gle Sheet A sheet of plas­tic is heated, then drawn by vac­uum over a mold. The vac­uum is used to cre­ate def­i­n­i­tion to the final part.
Ther­mo­form­ing: Twin Sheet Two sheets of plas­tic are heated, then drawn by vac­uum over a sep­a­rate molds, then fused together through pres­sure to form a struc­tural dou­ble walled part.

Third-Party Logis­tics provider (3PL) A out­sourced ser­vice provider of pro­duc­tion, trans­porta­tion and ware­hous­ing func­tions of a busi­ness. Com­pa­nies that out­source these com­pe­ten­cies enter alliances with core ser­vice providers. These ser­vices range in usage, includ­ing inbound trans­porta­tion, con­tainer man­age­ment or inven­tory man­age­ment. This provider nego­ti­ates pric­ing and ser­vice, based on guar­an­teed volume.

Top Cap Top Caps are placed on top on a pal­letized con­tainer load to per­mit stack­ing of one pal­let load of con­tain­ers on top of another. It allows loads to be securely stacked and offers uni­form dis­tri­b­u­tion of weight to pre­vent con­t­a­m­i­na­tion and prod­uct damage.

Top Frame Top Frames have a sim­i­lar func­tion to Top Caps, but are designed as an open frame. This frame is placed on top on a pal­letized con­tainer load to per­mit stack­ing of one pal­let load of con­tain­ers on top of another. It is a unit sta­bi­lizer that offers uni­form dis­tri­b­u­tion of weight to pre­vent con­t­a­m­i­na­tion and prod­uct dam­age. Usu­ally used in the bev­er­age and food industry.

Tote See Container.

UL-Listed/Classified A prod­uct approved by Under­writ­ers Laboratory.

Value-Added Per­ceived or esti­mated value that is added to a prod­uct or mate­r­ial at each stage of its man­u­fac­ture or distribution.

Veloc­ity The speed at which prod­uct trav­els through a sup­ply chain.

Waste Any­thing that con­sumes resources but does not add value to a prod­uct. Accord­ing to Shi­geo Shingo, there are seven types of waste: excess or early pro­duc­tion, delays, movement/transport, poor process design, inventory/work in process, defec­tive items and inef­fi­ciency of a process.

Work-in-process (WIP) Refers to the stor­age, trans­porta­tion and pro­cess­ing of items within a sin­gle oper­a­tion. In this appli­ca­tion, reusable pack­ag­ing can be used to process its con­tents, includ­ing assem­bly or picking.

© Prop­erty of ORBIS Cor­po­ra­tion 2006

Be Socia­ble, Share!

•