Military Services Should Uniformly Adopt Improved Packaging Techniques

Gao ID: LCD-77-216 June 8, 1977

Unlike the Air Force, the Army and Navy have been slow in accepting two innovative packaging methods, foam-in-place and fast packs, and therefore have lost potential savings.

Foam packaging affords savings in labor, materials, reusability, transportation, and reduced shipping damage when compared with conventional packaging. Experience at the San Antonio Air Force Logistics Center indicated that items packaged with foam resulted in overall savings in labor and material of about 40 percent. The San Antonio Center also reported that the introduction of fast packs in packaging resulted in increased production, about a 62 percent savings in material, and a 65 percent savings in labor, and a 65 percent reduction in paperwork. The lack of Department of Defense guidelines for effectively introducing the new technology has resulted in the wide variation of its acceptance by the military services.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

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