Sealed Air Corporation is a global leader in providing business customers with performance solutions for food, protective, and specialty packaging. Best known for its bubblewrap® cushioning material, the firm has pioneered a number of packaging innovations that have sustained a remarkable pattern of sales growth for more than two decades.

Using a consultative selling approach, field sales and technical support specialists at sealed air incorporate both packaging materials and specialized equipment to provide a complete packaging solution for customers, providing superior protection against shock, abrasion, and vibration, compared with other forms of packaging. Let’s explore the packaging solution that sealed air developed for davis neon inc., a wholesale neon sign manufacturer in heath springs, south carolina. Protecting custom-made neon signs that are shipped worldwide is a challenging problem for dave lytle, shipping manager at davis neon. “we were using preformed polyethylene foam sheets, which required a lot of storage space and time to unload from the trucks,” noted lytle. “we were keeping our eyes open for an alternative packaging method which would provide comparable protection, yet reduce costs and increase productivity.”

After evaluating several alternatives, dave lytle chose a solution proposed by sealed air to package the neon signs—instapak continuous foam tubes made by sealed air’s speedypacker insight system. Using the speedypacker equipment, now installed in the shipping area at davis neon, an operator can create numerous variations of foam bags at the touch of a button. For each neon sign, davis neon employees create a custom-made wooden crate with dimensions just large enough to house the sign. The packager then puts a layer of foam tubes, made-to-order by the speedy packer equipment, on the bottom of the crate to form a pad. Bubblewrap cushioning is used on the back of the sign, between rows, and on the side to provide surface protection and prevent abrasion of the sign against the crate. Another layer of foam tubes is added on top before the lid is attached to the crate.before implementing the sealed air solution, packagers used preformed polyethylene foam sheets, each of which had to be cut by hand to fit the crate for the bottom pad and top layer, as well as to fi t in between the letters on the neon sign. “the preformed polyethylene foam sheets took a long time to cut, were expensive, and produced significant material waste,” stated lytle. “After working with the new packaging system, the actual savings are 62 percent in material costs. We have also seen productivity increase by 20 percent.” Employees at davis are now able to pack more crates in less time.

1. Given the significant value that sealed air can provide for a customer, like davis neon inc., what approach should they follow in pricing a particular packaging solution for a customer?

2. Develop a list of other types of customers who face special packaging challenges and may represent promising customer prospects for sealed air to target.