by Sterling Anthony, CPP, expert witness, packaging, warnings, patent infringement, cargo loading & securement, insurance claims
At least 95% of consumer non-durables are shipped in corrugated boxes, a statistic that speaks to the many positives of corrugated board.
Think of corrugated board as sandwich-like structures, wherein a wavy (hence, the name, corrugated) board is glued between flat, liner boards. The wavy board is called flute and comes in various designations, the most popular being A-flute, B-flute, C-flute, and E-flute. The flutes differ in terms of vertical height and number per linear measure.
The majority of corrugated boxes are single-wall, meaning a flute between two liners; however, corrugated boxes come in double-wall and triple-wall, combining the requisite number of flutes and liners.
Corrugated boxes must have sufficient strength to protect their contents and to endure all reasonably-foreseeable environments associated with said protection; however, the seeming simplicity of corrugated boxes belies the complexity of designing them, given───in no way an exhaustive list───the many combinations of board grades, flute sizes, adhesives, coatings & treatments, and basis weights (a measure of density). In recent times, the era of sustainability has fostered increasing amounts of recycled content in the composition of corrugated boxes, complicating the prediction of and the measurement of performance.
So it turns out that corrugated boxes can be unfit for their intended purposes due to any of the many factors related to their design and manufacture; additionally, unfitness can be the result of pre-manufacture conditions, such as how the corrugated board was stored. Given the aforementioned predominance of corrugated boxes as shipping containers, and the many factors involved in same, failures, of varying degrees of seriousness, are inevitable.
When corrugated boxes fail, product damage is a decided possibility and so too is injury to people. One such scenario is the collapse of a palletized load caused by the inability of the lowermost boxes, in particular, to bear the superimposed weight. Whether litigation is in the form of an insurance claim for damaged goods or in the form of a personal injury/product liability suit, either Plaintiff, Defendant, or both might seek the services of an expert.
The expert should be knowledgeable about, and experienced in, all major aspects of the design, development, and specification of corrugated boxes. Another necessity is a matching expertise in the processes involved in the production of corrugated board and its conversion into boxes. The expert also should be well-versed in the laboratory testing of both corrugated board and corrugated boxes. Additionally, the expert should have a background in logistics and an acquaintance with the associated disciplines of transportation (including the regulations governing corrugated boxes), materials handling, and storage, along with the challenges they present throughout the supply-chain.
Sterling Anthony, CPP, is a consultant to the industrial, institutional, and government sectors and an expert who provides services to the legal community. He is a former manager at Fortune 100 companies and a former instructor at two major universities. His contact information is: 100 Renaissance Center-Box 43176, Detroit, MI 48243; (office) 313-531-1875; (cell) 313-623-0522; (fax) 313-531-1972; thepackagingexpertwitness@gmail; www.thepackagingexpertwitness.com