Time to start fresh with a “New Year’s” resolution. As we begin the New Year, we make resolutions. The problem in keeping resolutions is the discipline to maintain them; easier said than done.

Rotating cap inventory is the resolution. When shipments of new closures arrive at the plant, the closures are moved from the trailer and brought to the warehouse or storage area at the plant. Some customer’s take the time to pull out the older inventory and place the new inventory in back and put the old inventory in front. This is a good rotation practice between the old and new product. The production runs will be much smoother with less down time due to older cap problems. The problem with not rotating the inventory is that by the time the “old” inventory is brought out to production, a myriad of problems could occur. The following are the most common problems with old inventory:

• Closures are out of round
• Poor feeding thru feeding and capping equipment
• Broken attachments on to the cap
• Inconsistent production runs resulting in downtime
• Product leaving plant in poor condition (caps cocked or not tightened on the bottle)
• Returned product to dairy resulting in complaints from customers

And the list goes on...

To prevent or reduce customer complaints, slower production runs, product leaving in poor condition and returned product relating to old inventory, rotate the inventory when your caps are received. Once this habit of rotating your inventory is in place, it will become second nature. Use the oldest caps first. Taking the initial time when the closures arrive by rotating your inventory, the benefits for this task will be smoother and longer production runs between color changes, consistent feeding and capping application; higher quality product will be out in the market place with fewer returns from your valued customers.

*Cap performance is optimized if caps are used within 90 days of receipt.