Call-Off Orders and Delivery Runs for Packaging Customers

A blanket order is a two-sided promise. The customer commits to a total quantity of cartons, sleeves or pouches over several months, and you commit to price, specification and a plate set kept on file.

Start with one header. It carries the total, the validity dates, the artwork revision and the plate set number that every release will reuse, so nobody hunts through old emails. Release lines hang beneath it.

Many desks keep this in a spreadsheet tab per customer, and that works until two coordinators edit the same file on the same afternoon. The balance drifts. Nobody can say what is still owed.

The press does not care what Tuesday needs. A make-ready on a die cutter or a changeover on a flexo line costs hours that nobody can bill, whatever quantity the customer calls off. Lots differ.

So plan two kinds of lot. The production lot is sized by the machine, the board or film roll and the die, so it is often larger than any single call-off. The delivery lot follows the call-off. One production lot usually feeds several deliveries. Link them.

When a pallet comes off finishing, tag it to the blanket line, the production job and the bay where it will wait, before the stretch wrap goes on. A coordinator can then answer a buyer’s call in seconds, without walking the bays or phoning the night supervisor to ask what is left on the floor.

Held stock is call-off work’s quiet problem. Pallets sit in the bay for weeks, wrapped and labelled, while the same floor space is wanted for the next job that is waiting behind the roller door.

Give every held pallet a customer, a blanket line, a bay and a pallet count, and show its age on screen. Agree with the buyer how long you hold free, and what follows after that, such as a storage note or a forced release.

Check the held count against the blanket balance each Monday, walking the bays with the printout in hand and a pen for the differences. A mismatch means a pallet went to the wrong job, or that a reject was never booked out of stock, so look for both before blaming the count.

Once call-offs land, sort them by delivery date and then by area, so the dispatch desk sees which customers sit along one road. One van heading north with three small drops costs less than three vans, and each customer gets a single visit at the gate.

Set a cut-off time. Print it on the order confirmation. A call-off received after noon goes on the next day’s run unless the buyer asks for a special trip, so nobody is surprised by the rule.

Print a run sheet for each vehicle that lists drops in order, pallet counts, delivery note numbers, the gate contact and any unloading limits. Nobody should phone for a gate code.

A release is finished when the signed delivery note comes back, not when the van leaves the yard, since until then the pallet count is only a guess. Scan the note against the run. Flag any drop where the pallet count differs from the paper count, and ring the buyer before the next release is cut.

Update the blanket balance on that return. Then close the line. If a buyer disputes a quantity three months later, you want the note, the pallet tag and the production job sitting together in one place.

Take your busiest blanket customer first. Write out its total, its releases to date and the pallets you hold now, then add the cartons still on the press schedule. The gap marks your weakest step.