Choosing A Quality Flexitank Manufacturer Is Priceless

In the past six months, we have witnessed an explosion of interest in flexitanks. Nowadays most companies prefer to rely on cutting-edge technologies and can gain real benefits of using flexitanks.

It is no wonder that mounting interest to this innovative packaging solution has brought new players to this market.

Tatiana Golovina, founder of Environmental Packaging Technologies Inc. has spoken about the recent developments in the market and the overt benefits of using high quality flexitanks.

Tatiana Golovina

“Most companies are taking chances of cargo loss and clean-up responsibility in pursuit of low priced Flexitanks”.

“Transport:”  How can we compete with low priced Chinese flexitanks?

In the very beginning EKOPACKTECH, official representative of Environmental Packaging Technologies Inc., in Russia made a decision to produce the most reliable high quality flexitank at a competitive price. Fortune 500 organizations in the industrialized countries have long ago grasped the simple truth that a cheapskate pays twice. The low price of a Chinese-made flexitank results from inexpensive and often marginal materials. Low quality and low priced flexitanks entails certain risk; the companies lose their cargo and in some cases have to pay fines for product leakage. A couple of years ago a major shipping line was charged at 8 000 000 USD as it had to clean the vessel and apply for recertification in order to use the vessel for further shipments.  As a result this shipping line has banned all flexitanks. Other shipping lines have made a note of this bitter experience and made a list of flexitanks approved for sea carriage. Typically approved flexitank manufactures are members of the Container Owners Association and produce flexitanks in strong compliance with Recommended Code of Practices for Flexitanks developed by the organization.

 “Transport:”  How to estimate the quality of flexitank?  Does Russia prefer to stick to specific criteria? And the whole process is organized differently?

Indeed it is true. Russian Railways (RZD) is responsible for 80% of the inland transportation. Chinese flexitanks are not accepted by American and European railroads as these packages fail to withstand stressful shipping conditions. Only the most reliable flexitank system can sustain our railroads and secure safety of the transported cargo. Car coupling and vast territories make shipments in a flexitank a real challenge. Nevertheless, there are companies who continue to promote flexitanks made in China.

One Chinese flexitank prototype passed the RZD test on the fourth attempt by using wider steel bars (50x100x4 mm) and covering the container walls with plywood (10-12 mm).  These costly additions did not provide economic savings for utilizing a flexitank on rail.

Putting this in perspective, our BIG Red Flexitank has successfully passed all testing on the first try and became the first flexitank officially approved by RZD. On top of that, we use a standard flexitank system without any additional ‘strengthening’ equipment.

When it comes to other differences, our flexitank reservoir is 50% heavier than any Chinese made equivalent. Hardly anyone notices at first glance that our three-layer flexitank  is 1.5 times heavier than a Chinese flexitank sewn with five layers. Elongation of the inner polyethylene layer of BIG Red Flexitank is 800%. Our reinforced outer polypropylene layer controls liquid motion, protecting the container from damages. Chinese flexitanks made with 4 inner layers of thin polyethylene create an illusion of safety, but in fact they rip one by one under high pressures.

“Transport:”  You seem to be quite knowledgeable of Chinese made flexitanks.

Our experience is firsthand, because our initial manufacturing facility was located in China.  We cooperated with the facility, supplied it with raw materials and introduced the manufacturing process. However, within a short period of time we became dissatisfied with the quality of our flexitank and we were forced to make a very hard, but undoubtedly, right decision to move our production facility to the USA.

EPT Manufactures Flexitanks in U.S.

With offices, agents, and customers throughout the world, Environmental Packaging Technologies (EPT) is indisputably a global enterprise. So it’s especially striking to see the improvements this Houston-based company has made by converting from offshore to domestic manufacturing.

EPT produces and distributes several kinds of packaging for moving large volumes of bulk product. lts BIG Red Flexitank is a single-use polyethylene liner used to transport liquid in a 20-foot container.

EPT BIG Red Flexitank Swept Bar Bulkhead

Originally EPT manufactured the BIG Red Flexitank in China, shipping U.S.-made materials there for assembly, then bringing the finished product back to the United States. By 2008, that strategy was starting to wear thin.  “We started having quality issues in China, and the time zone difference made it difficult to control,” says Nancy Wendrock, President of EPT.

Quality is a critical issue for this product because even a small leak of a non-hazardous liquid could leave EPT liable for thousands of dollars worth of cleanup.  “We decided to take control and manage our own future,” Wendrock says.

Once company officials made this decision, they started crunching numbers. “We determined that we could produce in the United States at or below the cost we were paying in China,” Wendrock says. Labor is more expensive here, but EPT could create a highly automated U.S. factory that would require only eight employees, compared with the 40 at the China factory.  The company also would save on transportation because it would no longer need to ship materials overseas.

The company opted to build its new plant in Zeeland, Michigan.  At the time, the crisis in the automotive industry made Michigan especially attractive for a high-tech factory. “Many qualified, technical-oriented individuals in that part of the country were either out of work or had smaller workloads, so EPT could tap this talent pool,” Wendrock says.

The new operation started producing Flexitanks in 2009.  Because EPT was already distributing product from the United States, the only major change the new factory created in the company’s distribution involved customers in the Asia Pacific region, who previously were served directly from the China factory. “Most of our customer base is in North and South America, Europe, and South Africa,” Wendrock says. For those customers, the move to Michigan has shortened the distribution pipeline.

Moving manufacturing to the United States has helped EPT reduce costs by around 18 percent.  “Our quality issues have dropped to near zero,” Wendrock says. “That has been the biggest savings, because a single leak can cost us from $10,000 to $80,000.”

Read the entire EPT Manufactures Flexitanks in U.S. case study titled EPT Phones Home

EPT Featured in World Trade 100 Magazine

When Houston, Texas-based Environmental Packaging Technologies (EPT) embarked on re engineering project for their BIG Red Flexitank several years ago, it’s unlikely the company could have imagined that they would end up moving their manufacturing operations from China to the U.S. – usually, it’s the other way around.

According to president Nancy Wendrock, ”we went to our manufacturer in China and rcquested them to make specific design changes and to use different manufactudng methods,explains Wendrock. And, while the Chinese manufacturer was seemingly agreeable to the request, nothing changed. she says. “They were not eager to change the way they had always done business.”

Read more about EPT’s flexitank manufacturing move from China to the U.S.

State-of-the-art Flexitank Manufacturing

Environmental Packaging Technologies, Ltd. (EPT) has completed the most automated, state-of-the-art flexitank manufacturing facility in the world.

“During the process of re-engineering our BIG Red Flexitank™, we decided to also invest in updating the production of flexitanks and bring them into the 21st century,” stated Nancy Wendrock, President of Houston-based EPT. Wendrock continued, “The majority of flexitank manufacturing still involves workers walking on the bag and dragging the bag in order to assemble it. We have heavily automated our process in order to ensure a clean bag environment, produce a quality flexitank, and reduce fatigue and possible injury to our employees.”

Read more about state-of-the-art flexitank manufacturing.