All Wrapped Up, Ready to Prosper : Packaging: Transporting fragile goods becomes easier with inventor’s system.

Packaging designer Herb Ridgeway of San Diego faced a difficult task when an electronics firm asked him in late 1987 to design a package to ship fragile components. The components contained protruding metal “pins” that would bend under their own weight and be damaged when shipped by conventional methods of packaging using cardboard, plastic and foam.

Ridgeway, owner of San Diego-based Concepts in Packaging, a company that designs and manufactures industrial packaging, knew he had to try something unconventional.

So he fashioned a clam-like cardboard package, with the middle cut out of each side, and replaced the cut-out portion with a thin, plastic film “window.” The plastic film encased the delicate electronic components on the top and bottom when the cardboard was folded.

The plastic film punctured under pressure instead of breaking the pins as other plastics had, and the sturdy cardboard ends of the package formed a plane to protect the cell-like interior. The plane was then inserted into a box for shipment.

The result was a package that allowed delicate products to essentially “float” while suspended in place inside a box was virtually immune to shocks that would cause damage with other packaging methods.

Tucked away in a small, 6,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Southeast San Diego, Ridgeway’s company is quietly revolutionizing the packaging industry with the design concept, which he patented in 1989 under the name of “Korrvu Packaging System.”

The technique, which since has been licensed to four other packaging concerns, could eventually replace many types of foam, including Styrofoam, as the most common method used by the packaging industry, various industry sources say.

Concepts in Packaging posted sales of $995,000 in 1989, up from $565,000 in 1988. And so far this year, Concepts in Packaging’s sales are up 30% from the same period last year, Ridgeway said. The four independent licensees of the Korrvu system had combined sales of $1 million last year, Ridgeway said.

Concepts in Packaging now occupies a small niche in packaging, which overall was a $16.2-billion industry last year, said Henry Deluga, program manager for the Fibre Box Assn., a Rolling Meadows, Ill.-based trade association of cardboard manufacturers.

Up to 95% of all manufactured goods and agricultural products are shipped in cardboard boxes, known as “corrugated” to those in the industry, Deluga said.

Concepts in Packaging, in addition to its patented “window” design, manufactures the interior components of cardboard boxes.

“I think that Herb (Ridgeway) has a product that, within a matter of time, could be quite revolutionary,” said Donnetta Peachy, a spokeswoman for GHI Systems, a San Pedro-based instrumentation manufacturer whose customers include several packagers. GHI Systems makes instruments that manufacturers use to test a product’s fragility and packaging.

The Korrvu system is “not like anything that we’re used to,” Peachy said. “I think (Concepts in Packaging) has great potential. I think it would probably be profitable for any manufacturer to look into what (Concepts) is doing.”

Ridgeway has developed a variety of uses for the method, which he said has almost unlimited applications.

“Almost as soon as I saw the concept, as soon as I hit on it, I realized that, ‘Hey, there was a lot of potential here,’ ” he said. “We’re at the same stage molded foam was 30 years ago when it first came out.”

The principal benefit of the Korrvu method is that, by reducing damage to the items shipped, it helps companies cut costs related to claims and replacements. The Korrvu method also requires that less packaging material be used.

But an unexpected, long-term benefit of switching to the new packaging system is its potential for alleviating waste disposal problems, Ridgeway said. The cardboard used in Korrvu is made already recyclable, even with the plastic attached, and one of two kinds of the plastic used is biodegradable, he said.

“It was accidental that it had an environmental application,” he said.

Among the other advantages of using the Korrvu system is that its boxes can be stored flat when they are knocked down, reducing the amount of floor space used in warehouses and packaging areas.

Because of the plastic windows, the boxes also can serve as display packages, allowing a retailer to show a product in a 360 degree form, yet not worry about a customer dropping it.

David Ladd, shipping manager for Figi Graphics, a San Diego-based wall decor manufacturer, said the Korrvu packages have significantly improved the breakage rate for Figi’s shipments of large picture frames.

“It made an immediate difference in our packaging,” Ladd said.

Figi had tried several combinations of inner-package components, such as cardboard sleeves and Styrofoam peanuts, with little success. Using these methods, the business had a 15% breakage rate with its large-size merchandise, Ladd said.

After the Korrvu packages were phased in last year, Ladd conducted a two-month study. More than 6,000 pieces were shipped and only 46 damage reports were filed for a breakage rate of .07%, Ladd said.

Al Sklar, owner of Neon by Sklar, a San Diego-based manufacturer of glass components for neon products, said using Korrvu reduced the time it takes to package tiny glass bottles that the company ships.

“It’s a unique packaging system,” Sklar said. “There isn’t anything else really like it.”

Since January, when the company began using the new packages, there have been no reports of breaks of the delicate glass on shipments of about 100 cases. Each case contains 600 of the bottles.

Korrvu packaging has been used to ship a variety of products, ranging from delicate electronics parts to fragile china, and square windows ranging from one square inch to 1,296 square inches.

Ridgeway discovered that there have been about a dozen similar attempts at suspending an item in film, but none were successful. The earliest attempt in 1938 used latex rubber. “The idea was there, but it didn’t work,” Ridgeway said.

Ridgeway took a different tack, literally.

“Our strength . . . is in being able to put tack, the ability to ‘grab’ something, in the film,” so that there is a friction lock preventing the item from sliding around, he said. Ridgeway, 48, had almost 20 years in the packaging industry before he came up with the Korrvu design. He owned and worked at several packaging companies across the country until he started Concepts in Packaging in San Diego in 1985.

“I started on a shoestring,” Ridgeway said. “I found a sponsor account, a customer who was willing to help me get going because I was able to do a packaging design job for him.