Will package testing help road transport?
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by John Darker, AMBINI THE recent publication of the first phase of BS 4826—Methods of test for complete, filled transport .packages—marks the completion of a sizeable part of a major packaging -standardisation programme, nationally and internationally. This is designed to ensure economical, safe and trouble-free international transport of goods, and in future the standard will be helpful in defining test schedules.
No transport manager would deny that the subject is both topical and important. It has cried out for attention for as long as there has been a road transport Industry.
In the parcels sector, inadequate packaging has been the norm, for a high proportion of traffic, for many years. Cartons which have seen service many times are regularly used to dispatch goods, with a far from strict check by the senders that earlier labels have been removed or defaced. It is not in the least unusual for sharp objects to be inadequately shielded with risk of damage not only to the package in question bit—more important—to other goods carried in a parcels vehicle. The chairman of the committee of the British Standards Institute responsible for drafting BS 4826, Mr H. S. Kenyon, has described the situation in BSI News for September. It appears that work began eight years ago, stemming largely from work on an international level—the level that prompts a growing number of national standards.
First aim
The original aim of the committee was to study the hazards to which packages and their !contents are subjected in handling, distribution and storage in order to provide guidance to manufacturers, distributors and others concerned with the adequate design of such packages. From this it was a natural development to try to devise standard test methods to simulate typical hazards :to Which goods in transit are .subjected.
Some experience of package testing was, of course, already available from designers and manufacturers, but the existence of such data, subject to what Mr Kenyon describes as "local colour," was not found to be very helpful in a comparison of test results obtained in different places under varying conditions of stringency.
The committee, (through its International Standards Organisation affiliation, soon discovered that many countries were facing the problem on similar lines. In part this was a result of consultations within international trade federations, international transport associations and those concerned with research and testing in the field of packaging.
As a consequence of the wide interest 'manifested a sub-oarnmittee of the technical committee in ISO concerned with packaging was set up to review the Whole subject of package testing. (The ISO, in case anyone should not know of this, devised the standard dimensions of ISOmodule containers. On any count, it is a most prestigious body, owing mudh to the patronage of large manufacturing companies, and others, Who permit their executive managers to help develop 'ISO standards.)
Testing
The UK undertook to provide the secretariat of the relevant ISO Isub-comnOttete on package testing under the principal committee (ISO/TC122). It was soon decided to direct efforts to the testing of filled packages rather than to test empty packages and constituent parts of packages.
There followed a sustained effort to collate information on a worldwide basis, of hazards to which packages might be subjedted. A working group on hazards was set up to seek out and collate this information 'and a further working group looked into the best formulation of test schedules.
The sub-committee's work was divided into 'three phases: fact finding as to goods-in-transit hazards; the devising of test methods to simulate these hazards; and the formulation of guidelines on the creation of test schedules derived from standard test methods proposed.
When the final parts Of BS 4826 have been completed and endorsed nationally it will be necessary for international agreement to be achieved, and it is likely that a draft international standard will be available for circulation and comment during next year.
The work 'done so far by the committee chaired by Mr Ken yon culminating in the publication of the agreed standard test method's is said to !represent a milestone. "All concerned with package testing, whether as manufaCturers Of goods, through distribution of goods, or through receipts of goods can now with confidence invoke tests backed by a considerable body of international opinion as truly representative distribution hazards." Bat, as Mr Kenyon fairly paints out, for the 'time being (they must make their own judgments in selecting individual tests or sequences of tests to reflect their own particular problems, and the stringency of tests remains a matter of individual choice.
Guidelines
With the publication of guidelines for compiling test schedules it will greatly simplify the proper selection and sequence of teats to simulate a particular cEstriblition of goods. It will also indicate the necessary severity at which the tests will be applied.
If Mr Kenyon is right, over the coming years the results of testing will be monitored and compared with the actual results of distribution. With atandardisaton of tests on an international basis the collation of data will be simplified and this should lead to improved package designs and, ultimately, to ever greater refinement of test methods and their correlation with canditions in actual distribution.
It may be a little unkind to be sceptical about the wellmeaning efforts of the BSI and ISO to improve the design of packages and hence reduce the incidence of damage, pilferage and goods-in-transit insurance premiums. , But the old hand in road transport, indeed, in any form of transport, knows that a foolproof, damage-proof package is almost impossible to conceive.
Dockers, in many countries, have devised their own unique methods for abstracting the requisite percentage of edibles —and more recently, consumer products—from the goods that they handle.
The advent of the lorry gave an impetus to crime which is exploited effectively in all trading countries. Coatainterisation, originally publicised as the perfect answer to combat pilferage, has not been entirely successful Too often, one hears of brazen thefts of containers on lorries thanks to forged documentation or the connivance of staff al docks or terminals.
During the second world was when foodstuffs, and particularly sugar, was in short supply, roat transport drivers and platform staff seldom went Withoat sugar A hollow needle or metal tub( with a sharpened end coul( easily be poked into a sack 0: sugar.
Resourceful
Can anyone seriously doub that at some point in an inter national freight movement thi resourceful thief in future year will be capable of devising fresi methods to open up any type 0 package conceivable that is no prohibitively expensive to pro duce or (to use for storage o transport? '
There are periodic shortage Of materials used in packagin occurring in many countrie today and 'likely to recur I future years. Manufacturer specifications change to meet is flationary COLAs of materials an labour. Any itilt.ernationall, agreed testing and specfficatio: system would 'have to be cor stantly changed and updated t be effective.
Any system of adequate pad age design for new packs, cal tons, pallets, drums, 'carboy: etc, must face `the reality du many small manufacturers wi continue to use the cheape possible 'form of package wit which to send their goods produce.
There is the worldwide n vulsion 'against packaging—ce tairily excessive packaging—t such. Indeed, some astute tran part operators have made speciality of sending goods wit a minimum Of packing materi. or even no protective packk around the goods at all, usir strong restraint devices vehicle platforms or in co tainers.
It is possible to imagine the parcels trade the use of small number—under 10 for V bulk of goods dispatchedStandard-sized cartons. Th would facilitate the marking cartons for the identificatk and routeing Of traffic on co