Gargantuan logistics challenges are not for the fainthearted. Finding a logistics engineering firm with a proven track record in packaging and moving high-value equipment and components is often much easier said than done, especially when it comes to relocating huge facilities like fabrication plants to places as far as China. Headquartered in Elk Grove Village, Illinois, Basic Crating and Packaging is known for hardcore logistics projects for a host of top industry players.
Basic Crating and Packaging, Inc. offers comprehensive logistics engineering and design services that ensure that items of great size and worth get delivered safely to their final destinations, whether via air, rail, road, or ocean passage. To do this, the company takes care of all services necessary to conclude large long-haul moves. This includes packaging and coordination run from its production, distribution, storage, and assembly facilities across Illinois and Wisconsin.
Under everyday conditions, packaging may not sound like a big deal, but when it comes to shipping equipment, machinery, and massive vehicle components worth millions of dollars, the standard roll of corrugated cardboard and duct tape will not do. While Basic Crating and Packaging, Inc. has a standard range of packaging materials like shrink wrapping and plastic pouches, its large-scale crating and skidding has earned the company its reputation.
Once products are safely packaged, delivering them to their destination in one piece becomes the next priority. “We thrive on equipment arriving at our clients’ facilities safely and soundly. What is good for our customers is good for us,” says In-house Accounts Manager Lindsey Nashan.
Basic Crating and Packaging, Inc. is prepared to meet even the most stringent demands with a large number of land and port locations throughout North America. “There’s nothing our guys can’t do,” adds Nashan. This explains why some of the biggest names in the nation, including the United States military, trust this company to get their assets across land and ocean, safely and on time.
Basic Crating and Packaging, Inc. is particularly favored for its packaging services by fabricators in the telecommunications and electrical component industries. Both government and private sectors clients can have the company station its staff at their facilities exactly as needed, whether that means putting together a one-off shipment, remaining at a client’s facility for a month or more, or packaging eight hours a day every week of the year, it works to ensure a smooth, thorough and safe packaging process.
Thanks to its strict adherence to the International Standards For Phytosanitary Measures No. 15 (ISPM-15), all the company’s lumber carries the National Plant Protection Organization’s (NPPO) official stamp of approval. Phytosanitary measures refer to all precautions that are taken in protecting plant species as well as plant disease control during the import and export of wood and other raw plant materials.
Basic Crating and Packaging, Inc.’s lumber standards outperform those set by the NPPO, because of its superior heat treatment measures on its solid wood packaging materials. The International Plant Protection Convention’s stamp of approval governs all coniferous and non-coniferous solid and softwood used in crating, skidding, and pallets. It does, however, exclude engineered wood products like plywood, paper wood, and any other wood products that are created by combining organic matter and glue components under compression.
The company’s IPPC’s stamp also includes a heat treatment code indicated by the abbreviation -HT. The importance of heat treatment over traditional methyl bromide treatments is significant, as heating wood to fifty-six degrees Celsius for half an hour in sealed chambers is by far gentler on the environment than chemical fumigation, which is indicated on IPPC stamps as -MB. Each stamp also includes the country of origin’s code, which is governed, in this instance, by Organization for Standards (ISO).
To streamline its packaging options for fabricators, the company is always innovating. Most recently, it launched the manufacturing of its Basic Nailess Solution (BNS). The new crate is a tough, sturdy, versatile, nail-less wooden box that weighs around thirty percent less than commonly used crates but is just as tough. The product “is a unique combination of materials in terms of the type of lumber, metal [and other materials] we are using. We created the perfect solution,” says Nashan.
Another perk of collaborating with this efficient team is that it shares its supply chain management skills. Clients benefit from expert manufacturing coordination, equipment automation, forecast interfacing, packaging, assembly, and even vendor management that all ensure optimal quality and productivity alongside overall growth in industry relationships.
This company prides itself on what it calls a ‘total value approach,’ in which every project is treated as unique and is customized according to the customer’s specific combination of demands. To do this, it must be perpetually open to coming up with ideas that can deliver value to its clients’ operations with the help of its in-house research and development and engineering departments.
One of the greatest challenges in the company’s history presented itself not long ago when an automotive bearing fabrication plant had to be relocated from Ohio to The People’s Republic of China. The entire process took three months, during which the company provided rigging and engineering while packing two hundred oversized shipping crates that were too large to be shipped inside ocean containers, in addition to 250 ocean containers that also had to be packed and shipped.
Current President and Managing Partner Tracy Arnold established Basic Crating and Packaging Inc. in 2011. Following that, the company acquired two other firms, including Chicago Export in 2016. The entities were merged, complete with all staff, facilities, and knowledge. The company then invested in a fully-integrated hazardous materials (HAZMAT) operation, that was based on an original hazmat department established by an earlier partner and is now known as its dangerous goods group. Today, Basic Crating and Packaging Inc. has successfully amalgamated all three corporate cultures into one powerful force.
The company originally worked mainly for a spare parts distributor and vendor in the agricultural fabrication industry, packaging components that were bound for foreign shores. From here, imports, transportation, container loading, and machine rigging all slowly grew into fully-fledged departments. “We are constantly evolving to meet our customers’ needs in the logistics world,” says Nashan.
But this is impossible without the right people, and the company’s management team especially values its staff of 180 for their attention to detail. Project managers are also well educated and dedicated to leading their teams through thorough training while continuously driving the creation of quality products. Not surprisingly, there more to this dynamic firm than first meets the eye.
Basic Crating and Packaging Inc. is a proudly Woman-Owned Business that has been nominated for several local awards for its work in the industry. The company also nurtures continued education through a four-year scholarship program with the International Air Cargo Association of Chicago in Illinois. Furthermore, it supports the Harvest Christian Academy, Toys for Tots, and the Hurricane Florence Relief Fund.
Basic Crating and Packaging, Inc. has several new locations on its horizon as part of its goal of establishing its facilities across the nation and, eventually, offering its services internationally. Considering the firm’s achievements, phenomenal growth, and commitment to excellence and innovation, it is clearly ready to take on the world.
