Christmas Gift Wrapping - The Supply Chain Way!

Tonight, as I was faced with the task of wrapping enough presents to keep the production lines of Lapland busy for 3 years, it occurred to me that I can utilise my bountiful knowledge of supply chain and lean principles to the gift wrapping process.  (Yes I am a geek proud of it).  I would like to share this with you all as possibly the most informative, educational and giving blog of the year – it is Christmas after all!

Wastage

This is a common issue when wrapping presents, with the frequent result of being left with unusable, small pieces of wrapping paper. 

The supply chain geek in me hates putting these too-small-to-use but too-big-to-be-classed-as-unusable bits of wrapping paper in the bin. 

I have come up with an ingenious solution that I was tempted to patent, but have generously decided to share with my LinkedIn family at this time of good will – create gift labels with them!

By creating (sort of) symmetrical shapes with the left over wrapping, and then…wait for it…TURN THEM UPSIDE DOWN so the plain side is facing upward (out-of-the-box thinking right there) they are immediately transformed into a blank sheet of paper for you to write your Christmas tidings to your loved ones on. 

A bit of sticky tape later, and low and behold, you have a perfectly labelled Christmas gift with the added benefit of having saved money on fancy, and unnecessary gift tags.  How smug can you now feel that at the cost saving, not only through utilising those pesky bits of excess wrapping paper, but also on the cost of gift tags?  Amazing!

Another common wastage issue, and perhaps even more infuriating than the leftover pieces, is when you think you have cut a piece big enough to envelop the gift in question, but upon attempting to enclose said gift, there is a 5 mm gap where the two ends of gift-wrap refuse to meet. 

My advice on this matter is to be a bit more strategic in your thinking.  That old Lean chestnut of taking a bit longer to think of the problem in hand, in order to create a solution which will end up saving you more time over all. 

Measure your gift and then the wrapping paper BEFORE YOU CUT IT, thereby ensuring the perfect fit.  Should your process fail once in a while (maybe your concentration lapsed when distracted by the 124th repeat of The Two Ronnies causing you to under-cut) and you still end up with a substandard piece of wrapping paper…save it for smaller gifts within your pile. Mind-blowing advice I know, but some of us are born to be front-runners of innovation in lean and process improvement.

Do not, under any circumstances, be tempted to try and stretch the paper to achieve that extra 0.5cm.  Torn and unusable wrapping paper will be the inevitable result.  This will only lead to stress and a knee-jerk reaction to screw up the broken paper and launch it at your wrapping partner who will, under the laws of probability, be laughing at you, thereby rendering it useless.  Some might say this is a credible and justifiable use of the product and therefore a part of the lean process – but this is controversial and at the discretion of the gift-wrapper-in-chief.

Sticky Tape

An integral part of any gift wrap process, sticky tape can make or break the efficiency of your production line.  Bottle necks can include issues such as:

• Sticking the pieces of tape together rendering them useless
• Discovering you haven’t cut enough pieces off to piece together the wrapping at its pivotal moment, so it falls away from the gift and you have to start again
• Cutting a too big / too small piece
• Lip injury incurred by the sticky tape attaching itself to your skin and stubbornly refusing to budge.  Ouch!

Now the obvious answer may be to employ a cutting machine such as the one below:

However, I feel this is an outdated and expensive solution.  The answer lies in outsourcing.

By partnering with a co-wrapper, you can ensure a Just-In-Time solution to your sticky tape requirements.

Source a pole, examples of which can be found around the home in the form of a broom handle, curtain rail, or washing-line pole.  Then get your co-packer to tear off pieces of tape and arrange them on the pole as demonstrated below:

This solution has a number of benefits including freeing you up to get on with cutting gift wrap to size and writing labels, but also, should the relationship fail and your Co-Wrapper fails to cut enough sticky tape in time, you can use the pole to poke them into realising their mistake.  This may hark back to the old “beating your suppliers into submission” way of working, but sometimes the old methods are the best.

The Easy to Lose Tools

In most production lines, there are tools which are integral to a process, but are small and mobile and easy to lose.  The paper-wrapping-line is no exception.  I call this bottleneck the Pen and Scissor Problem.

I don’t know about you, but no matter how many years of experience I have in wrapping gifts, I will ALWAYS, without fail, lose the pen and / or scissors at pivotal moments in the process.  This causes unneeded stress, line failure, and potential further disharmony with your Co-Packer who you are convinced is trying to undermine your process through the surreptitious sequestering of your sticky tape (an unfortunate consequence of the aforementioned pole-poking method perhaps?)

The clever lean solution to this issue is to invest in some twine and attach yourself to the offending articles.  In this way you will always be able to locate the necessary tools when needed.  Genius I know.

I hope this blog has opened your minds to the possibilities of applying supply chain logic to the joys of wrapping Christmas presents! If nothing else, I hope it has made you smile!!

On that note, I would like to thank you all for reading my blogs in 2015 and all of your support.  A very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of you.  I leave you with this: