Beating the drum for packaging

FDL is meeting the needs of the pharma sector for a one-stop packaging source.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers have better things to do with their time than packaging procurement and better uses for their warehouses than filling them with empty packaging. They also want to buy in a week or two weeks' supplies at a time and have them delivered at a certain time on a certain day.This was the message from its customers that led UK-based FDL Packaging Group to set up a stocking and distribution side to its drum manufacturing business. To complement its fibre, steel and plastic drums, it set itself up to supply IBCs, plastic bottles, jars and containers - particularly UN containers for hazardous solids and liquids - tamper-evident solutions, specialist approval and food-grade options.

FDL targeted companies with multiple sites in the UK that have a wide range of packaging to source. It then offered to take over the job of supplying all those sites with everything from bag ties to steel drums, from a few hundred sample jars to a whole vehicle load of fibre drums.

As environmental tariffs continue to affect packaging users, rising oil prices increase distribution and raw material costs and the global demand for metal makes even the humble mild steel drum a valuable commodity, the company has also taken on the mantle of packaging efficiency advisors.

'With the current emphasis on reducing cost and increasing efficiency, every single organisation that uses packaging deserves a thorough "cradle to grave" packaging use audit - and it is by providing such a service that we have been able to steer customers towards more effective solutions and help them minimise the impacts of waste efficiency targets and increased raw material costs,' explained Stephen Cunniffe, managing director of FDL Packaging Group.

In 2000, the company introduced the 'Packaging Efficiency Audit', which is specially geared to investigate how the most cost-effective and logistical packaging programme can be developed. After looking at ways of minimising deliveries, reducing stocking requirements, significantly reducing the wasteful disposal of precious resources and freeing up warehousing and procurement personnel for more effective use, FDL Group provides a tailored solution built around customer service, convenience, waste management and cost-efficiency.

'Customers expect a holistic approach,' said Cunniffe, 'one that not only embraces requirement, but investigates the suitability and impact of the choice made, from purchase to final disposal. We view the popularity of our Packaging Efficiency Audits as a genuine indicator of customers' appetite for real opportunities to save. And where efficiencies can be demonstrated, we find there's also a real enthusiasm on the customer's part to embrace our suggestions and even make changes to their working practices and procedures.'

Furthermore, to cater to the specific needs of the pharmaceutical inter-mediates, fine chemicals and food ingredients sectors, FDL's specialist fibre drum manufacturing business has invested in a new facility for producing ultra clean drums. In the company's new cleanroom area, newly manufactured drums are internally and externally vacuumed and cleaned to remove even microscopic fibre particles. They are then sealed to avoid secondary contamination.