Chinese processor calls for universal wool packaging standards

The need for unified wool packaging was highlighted by Chinese top maker Zhejiang Red Sun Wool Textile Co during the recent International Wool Textile Organisation Congress in Adelaide.

Red Sun director Yang Shao Wei told the audience with the help of an interpreter that the company would like to revise and improve international standards relating to raw material quality and unified packing standards to meet changing requirements.

"Just a simple example is in the process of using our intelligent warehouse, we found that [there were] not standard wool bales or packages," he said.

"For example we found the standard Australian package might be 1.2m long but sometimes when we receive the wool it's as long as 1.5m, which will make our intelligence system not functioning."

His presentation also highlighted that wool bales from South Africa measure smaller than those from Australia at 90cm long by 75cm high and 65cm wide.

Mr Yang said broken bales where the wool falls out could also affect their detection system.

Elders Wool national manager Michael de Kleuver said since the opening of their high-tech wool hubs in Rockingham, WA and Ravenhall in Victoria, it has been clear how important standardisation was when using automation.

"In a conventional wool store, it doesn't matter very much but in a fully-automated wool store like ours it makes a huge difference," he said.

"Bales that are outside spec need to be managed differently.

"We have specially designed bays for bales that are too wide or too long and we do get a few of them."

Mr de Kleuver said about 0.5 per cent of bales going into the automated hubs did not meet standards, and they had to re-press some bales as a result of these variations

"We pre-measure every bale on the way in ... if every bale was uniform, we wouldn't have to measure them," he said.

"A whole gadget has been developed to make sure we measure them and make sure they fit, and that's cost a lot of money."

Mr de Kleuver said their biggest issue had been overweight bales.

"When we send the bales to the dumpers, they simply can't handle bales above 204kg," he said.

"They can't handle that sort of weight and they have to then mix and match with a light one and a heavy one to put them together when they dump them.

"Overweight bales have been one of our biggest issues and it's mind blowing the number we get.

"Uniformity is key, you want bales that are inside the weight range, well-pressed, the right shape, not too long and not too wide... if you're making them overweight they tend to get pretty long because you can't close them properly.

"For an automated facility, the more uniform the better, it's that simple."

AWEX CEO Mark Grave said having uniformity among international wool packaging standards going forward would be desirable and logical.

"Increasingly as logistics and warehousing head towards automation, standardised packaging becomes so much more important," he said.

"Most systems can handle a minimum variation but if they exceed the minimum all of a sudden it throws out their systems which make them inoperable, so you can understand why anyone within Australia or overseas would like standard packaging and standard weights.

"If you look even in Australia there isn't a standardised wool press box, the actual presses are slightly different in dimensions as well, which doesn't help.

"There are old presses that still exist because they are still mechanically able to work... they're expensive things to buy, but the whole idea is to make sure we have a standardised package, a standardised length and a standardised range for bale weight."

Mr Grave said while automation was relatively new, standardisation measures have been put in place over years with technology and other logistical issues in mind.

In 2013, a new Australian wool pack standard was put in place off the back of issues in NSW in 2010, where loads of wool bales on road trains exceeded the legal load limit of 2.5 metres wide, due to bales over 1.25m wide being placed end-to-end on the trucks.

Despite that process taking place more than a decade ago, Mr Grave said there were still discrepancies in bale size on occasion.

Mr Grave said the concerns raised about variations in wool packaging were a reminder to the industry to be aware of meeting standards and making sure bales were fit for purpose as well.

"Everyone in the supply chain from farm all the way through has to understand that the next person handling that wool has obligations to meet as well," he said.