Packaging for industrial products - Introduction

The "Syndicat de l'emballage industriel" has defined industrial packaging as the packaging of industrial materials and products, i.e. the packaging of capital goods rather than consumer goods.

The techniques and materials used are often very different but stem from the same basic principles:

• physical distribution of materials ;

• protection of this equipment.

Packaging must facilitate logistical operations by reducing the risks they entail:

• during handling operations where the study of gripping is essential;

• during transport, when the packaging forms a coherent whole with the means of transport used;

• during storage, where packaging facilitates product stacking.

Last but not least, packaging enables us to manage distribution operations.

Industrial materials and products in transit and in storage are subject to the stresses of their logistical environment during handling, transport and storage. Depending on their "sensitivity" or fragility, they can withstand these stresses without deterioration, or they can be damaged.

The equipment may have been rendered unusable, or may be out of adjustment; but it may also have been subjected to repeated stresses, resulting in premature ageing and compromised reliability.

The protection to be provided for the equipment must therefore take into account the sensitivity of the materials to stress, and analyze this sensitivity. This introduction sets out to establish the basic principles of industrial packaging.

• For all the operations mentioned in this introduction, the reader is invited to consult the relevant sections of this treatise (references [1] and [2] ). ).

This study on industrial packaging consists of four articles:

• Packaging for industrial products. Introduction;

• Packaging for industrial products. Climatic and physico-chemical protection;

• Packaging for industrial products. Mechanical protection;

• and Packaging of industrial materials and products;

• to which a documentation booklet common to all these articles is attached:

• Industrial product packaging....