Challenge: Marvel, an office furniture manufacturer, had been shipping a mobile computer work station in a package that included two separate parts, a base and a top. This called for added assembly on site, which was both awkward and difficult. Once the decision had been made to ship the unit fully assembled, it necessitated a new packaging configuration.

Solution: In our Structural Design Lab, the rule of thumb is “start from the bottom up.” So, we flipped the unit over so that the top of the workstation faced the floor, and “floated” on a one-inch cushion of foam inserted into the bottom tray. To accommodate the separate computer housing unit, we placed it in an RSC (regular-slotted container), surrounded it with a corrugated sleeve and capped it off with another tray to prevent movement.

Outcome: We were able to contain and fully isolate a large, heavy unit while reducing the packaging pieces from 10 to 6. The savings for Marvel have been significant.