Looking for a solution

[Trey Tull]

I have been engraving a lot of ink pens lately and purchased the automated conveyor to help speed things up but I'm running into a bottle neck at the repackaging step. When the pens arrive, each one is in a little clear plastic sleeve and the vendor wants the pens put back in these sleeves. We did an order yesterday that was over 1000 pens and it took a great deal of time to put each one back. Its hard to make money when you're standing around inserting pens into plastic sleeves. I'm sure the vendor would be open to other packaging options but I need a good one before I go to them.

I have thought about making some eva foam trays and just put the pens in there but that would take up a bunch of space.
I then thought about some sort of automated machine that has a role of that thin plastic sleeve and a pen would drop in and then a hot knife would seal the ends but I don't know what that would be called.

I don't have much room left in the shop for more machines (not on Kev's level yet but its getting tight), so whatever it is, it will need to have a compact footprint.

Any ideas?

Thanks
Trey

[Brian Lamb]

How about a rigid plastic tube with end caps? I get my end mills and reamers in such tubes, and in volumes of 1000 they might be pretty cheap, and a whole lot faster to fill than futzing around with plastic sleeves. Check out store.visipak.com (http://store.visipak.com) and I looked up the 1/2" Ultra Clear Rigid Bottom Containers , they are 12" long, but I'm sure you could find or special order the length you need and at about 27 cents each, it might be a viable situation.

https://store.visipak.com/images/P/sealed-containers.jpg

[Gary Hair]

Here you go.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSsLFUJgfKQ

[Trey Tull]

Here you go.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSsLFUJgfKQ

Gary, you are da man!! I'm sure that thing will set me back. Thank you sir!

Scratch that idea. The company is overseas.

[Trey Tull]

How about a rigid plastic tube with end caps? I get my end mills and reamers in such tubes, and in volumes of 1000 they might be pretty cheap, and a whole lot faster to fill than futzing around with plastic sleeves. Check out store.visipak.com (http://store.visipak.com) and I looked up the 1/2" Ultra Clear Rigid Bottom Containers , they are 12" long, but I'm sure you could find or special order the length you need and at about 27 cents each, it might be a viable situation.

https://store.visipak.com/images/P/sealed-containers.jpg

I use those for pens that I make but they would be too expensive for this job. Thanks for the suggestion though.

[Bill George]

Do them all in one batch, leave in a bin. Hire a teenager or son to repackage at a piece rate.

[Scott Shepherd]

I feel your pain. We do work for a company that makes some small parts. Every single part is in its own little box and every part in its own ziplocked plastic bag. The parts barely fit. It takes a few seconds to engrave each one and a minute a piece to unpack and pack them back up. You just have to set the price to include the packing.

[Kev Williams]

check this out,
https://uspackagingandwrapping.com/shrink-tunnel-1606-20.html?utm_source=google-shopping&utm_medium=organic&gclid=CjwKCAiAlvnfBRA1EiwAVOEgfK2j557Fh6xRP489bBSs aYiNj45QQvYkeVhEW8sucfwvq19mousqlRoCqIYQAvD_BwE

--not sure if that machine would do pens, some research would be in order for sure...

as for using the old sleeves- what should help is a little air pressure, pointed into the open end of the tube... you could rig up a hose and stationary nozzle easy enough, using a normal air compressor and a pressure regulator, or a diaphragm pump like on our chinese lasers for air assist- anyway, just a light puff of air will blow the tube open making it easy to drop the pen back in. Will take a little practice but you or a helper would quickly get the hang of how to best hold the tube and get very quick at it. Should be able to bag 6 per minute easy, that's 360 per hour-- paying helpers 4 cents per pen would earn them $15 per hour :)

[Scott Shepherd]

Should be able to bag 6 per minute easy, that's 360 per hour-- paying helpers 4 cents per pen would earn them $15 per hour :)

Sadly, when it comes to high production like these pens, they often want to pay .10 cents each, complete. Paying someone .04 cents to bag them would take a big chunk of the money. It's sad that the prices to do things like that is so low.

[Bob Davis - Sturgis SD]

I have a similar situation, maybe on a smaller scale, with small knives we engrave for a customer. The unpackaging / repackaging takes the most time. The customer agreed to do that for me. In return he gets a price that he can live with. We often discuss with customers how they can save money, some will do their own masking, painting and weeding. And then some don’t care about the cost, they just want it done. Those are the ones usually spending someone else’s money, lol.

Bob

[John Lifer]

Heat sealer. Remake the original type sleeve. Folded over sheet, seal bottom, drop pen, seal again, drop pen, seal, probably 20-30 a minute if you are good at it. Now I would NOT pull apart, let customer do that.
Cheapest option. But would add to the cost. Sometimes customer has to suck it up and pay for what they are getting.

[Bert McMahan]

Any chance you could just slip the pens about halfway out of the bag to do the engrave, then slide them back in?

In my experience opening the bag is like 80% of the time it takes to put something into a bag :)

[Kev Williams]

Sometimes customer has to suck it up and pay for what they are getting.
--The company that's keeping my lasers running almost constantly right now, they have their own fiber laser, yet they choose to go outside for their engraving rather than do it in-house. I'm the lucky soul who got that job- And if there's any sucking up to do, guess who'll be doing it! :D

But yeah, more than once I've asked my customers to do the unwrapping. Sometimes they oblige, sometimes not. :)

[Trey Tull]

The pens are metal, so if they unwrap and then ship, the finish will end up getting scratched. Same if I don’t rewrap them.

I would like to only pull the pen partially out and then engrave but they are in the sleeve backwards for that to happen.

Thanks for all of the ideas guys!