Shipping damage can be a huge drain on your company’s finances. Not only does it lead to a lost product, but it can also cause a range of other expensive issues like customer dissatisfaction and disloyalty, delays, interruptions, discounts, and shipping costs (perhaps expedited) for replacements. And that’s not even to mention the harm that shipping damage can do to the environment — extra shipping burns extra fuel and requires extra resources, after all.
In order to reduce shipping damage, you need information — information about what your packages go through during shipping. You need to know if they’ve been dropped or jostled, experienced high levels of vibration in transit, been left out in the cold or allowed to get too hot. Impact and vibration sensors can give you that data, so you can make important changes to your shipping practices — like changing routes, methods, or packaging. That means you can reduce shipping damage and improve your bottom line.
Your Packages Go Through a Lot
You probably don’t need us to tell you that packages go through a lot during shipping. Every year around the holidays, the internet is flooded with videos of delivery people chucking packages over fences or hurtling them towards front doors from the curb. And that’s not the only time your goods might experience damage during shipping.
Any time a package experiences an impact, there’s the potential for damage. Most damage happens when a package is (accidentally) dropped at some point along the supply chain. According to a recent report by the manufacturer of impact and vibration recorders, Spotsee, a package dropped from a height of just 36 inches experiences up to 113 Gs of force. That’s enough to break any electronics that haven’t been ruggedized.
And you can bet that your packages will experience more than just an accidental drop when they’re working their way through the supply chain. In addition to impacts from shipping and logistics personnel dropping or throwing a package, there’s the vibrational stress a package can endure while riding on a truck with bad suspension, for example. Some items, like flat-screen TVs and refrigerators, can sustain damage even if they’re tilted too far during shipping, or loaded upside down. Many items are vulnerable to damage from humidity and moisture, and there are plenty of things that have to be kept at a specific temperature throughout the shipping process — like live plants and animals, medications, or food products.
Protect Your Shipments with Impact and Vibration Recorders
The stresses your packages face during shipping don’t have to remain a mystery. There are shock and impact recorders on the market today that can record data about impact and vibrational stress and give you a warning if your contents have sustained impacts, vibrations, moisture, or temperatures at a level sufficient to cause damage. You can choose impact and vibration detectors that not only record data but change color or offer some other visual indication that the package contents need to be carefully examined for damage.
That’s important, because damage to shipping contents isn’t always visible to the naked eye when you look at the items. Especially for complex, but delicate, electronics with interior components, damage is often hidden where you can’t see it. A visible warning signals to you, or your employees, that a shipment needs further testing to determine whether it has been damaged.
You can even get impact and vibration recorders that collect and send data in real time, so you can see what your shipments are going through as it happens. Is your shipment of perishable foodstuffs getting too hot? Are your important manufacturing components delayed at some point in the supply chain? Real-time tracking technologies are available to send you the real-time alerts you need to take action before damage occurs, such as rerouting your delayed shipment so it still arrives on time, or alerting logistics professionals that your items are in danger.
Of course, you can’t prevent all shipping damage by using impact and vibration sensors. But they can help you refine your packaging, methods, and routes to minimize any damage that may occur. Your company will benefit from reduced costs and your customers will benefit from shipments that arrive intact, as intended.