• Zost (unregistered) in reply to DaveyDaveDave

    Yes. Cardboard boxes can be made from many different recycled materials. Wooden ones can only be made from recycled trees.

  • (cs) in reply to Michael
    Michael:
    Except that those boxes are meant to be reused and those boxes are used many times before they are recycled.

    How do you figure that?

  • (cs) in reply to WhiskeyJack
    WhiskeyJack:
    Michael:
    Except that those boxes are meant to be reused and those boxes are used many times before they are recycled.

    How do you figure that?

    This is a known fact. The scrap guys often purchase these boxes and bottles. THe person who recieved all these boxes should call the "bhangar wala" and make money.

  • Anonymou5 (unregistered) 
    

    

    

    



    

    

    


    

    

    
<script language="Javascript">
<!--
document.write("efficient");
//-->
</script>
  • frits (unregistered) in reply to DaveyDaveDave
    DaveyDaveDave:
    Mr Green:
    If the packaging is worth more than the screws, this has got me thinking...order a very large quantity of screws from Dell and start a business selling padded envelopes/jiffy bags = profit!

    **with a FREE screw!!!

    Your mother started a business like that one time. It got old after a while, though.

  • (cs)

    It's like getting 66 little Christmas presents all at once...

    Who wouldn't like that?

  • The Corrector (unregistered) in reply to frits
    frits:
    DaveyDaveDave:
    Mr Green:
    If the packaging is worth more than the screws, this has got me thinking...order a very large quantity of screws from Dell and start a business selling padded envelopes/jiffy bags = profit!

    **with a FREE screw!!!

    Your mother started a business like that one time. In fact, that's how you were born!.
    FTFY

  • qbolec (unregistered)

    before judging efficiency of a solution, as IT people we should first know what is the probability distribution of numer of items ordered.

    For example if 99 customers ordered just a single thing each, and one customer orders 100 items, then it still makes sense to me to pack every item separately, as the cost of extra packaging for that one customer is already amortized by the previous 99.

    Whenever algorithm can get simplier by eliminating optimization that gives little to no amortized gain, I vote for simplified version.

  • dtanders (unregistered)

    Wonderful to see this post today since we've just received a box from HP containing another box. The second box is to be used to ship a laptop back for repairs, but if it couldn't make it here without protection, it doesn't give me a great deal of confidence that the laptop will get back to HP in one piece.

  • #&^$ in a box (unregistered)

    Looks like someone's got the material to make quite a few valentine's day presents.

    +1 to anyone who anyone who can tell me what sort of screw is going to be delivered. +10 to anyone who needs a bigger box.

  • Jay (unregistered)

    On the serious side, I wonder if these examples are common practice or if they're extremes. I'll laugh at the extremes as much as anyone, but I question if there's really some profound socio-economic issue here.

    Bear in mind that too little packaging would be a bigger problem. Which is a worse waste of resources: An expensive item is shipped with twice as much styrofoam as is really necessary, thus wasting the styrofoam? Or an expensive item is shipped with half as much styrofoam as is really necessary, and is damaged in transit, thus wasting the resource expended to produce the expensive item?

    In theory, a company could have a custom-made box for each product and every possible combination of products, so that every order could be shipped with optimal packaging. In practice. this would be wildly impractical. Just listing all the possible combinations of products would involve exponentially large numbers. Suppose you had just 20 products and a customer never ordered more than one of each. You'd have 2^20~=1 million different boxes. Where would you store them all? And you'd have to have instructions on exactly how to pack every possible combination of items to fit in these optimal-size boxes perfectly.

    So in real life, companies have some modest collection of different box sizes and pick one that seems big enough for each shipment. It's inevitable that sometimes one box will be just a little too small and the next size up will be way too big and rather wasteful, or that the person packing the order will, in an effort to get the job done quickly, pick a box bigger than what he really needed.

  • (cs) in reply to trtrwtf
    trtrwtf:
    ... So you see, this is the most efficient system possible - truly, we live in the best of all possible worlds.

    Scene opens on HERMES, LEELA, BENDER, and CANDIDE seated at the conference table. DR PANGLOSS, in lab coat and bedroom slippers enters stage right.

    PANGLOSS: Good news, everyone! Dell has hired us to deliver a package.

  • anon (unregistered) in reply to MeBerserk
    MeBerserk:
    Do you realize they still make a profit from this somehow (atleast I assume that) =P

    True, those screws probably cost $5.00 when purchased from Dell. But Dell may only have a TCO of $1.50 after cost of item, cost of handling, and cost of shipping.

    Why, yes, I am pulling numbers out of my ...

  • Spearhavoc! (unregistered) in reply to Jay

    I'm guessing what actually happened here is that one part got ordered for dozens of accounts, and Dell's shipping process (almost certainly automated through and through) has no mechanism for combining different orders to the same address - by the time a human could see that everything was going to the same place, it's already been boxed and you don't save anything by repackaging it.

    Just make sure you recycle the boxes.

  • Nellius (unregistered)

    Reminds me of the other week. I ordered a single stick of RAM from a website and it was delivered (by CityLink) in an A3 sized cardboard envelope containing nothing except a single stick of RAM in it's wee anti-static bag.

  • Sectoid Dev (unregistered) in reply to Safely anonymous
    Safely anonymous:
    Philipp:
    Postal services and couriers should start to charge based on volume instead of just weight. That way there would be an incentive to use more efficient packaging.

    I am pretty sure the limiting capacity of most parts of the transportation chain is rather volume or number of packets instead of their weight.

    Actually, most do. Generally, it's a minimum weight per cubic foot so that they don't go broke hauling styrofoam.

    Realistically, packages like that will fall under minimum charge (the fee you get regardless of size) anyway.

    When I worked for FedEx in the 90s, they used 'Dimensional Weight' so that you were paying based on measurements rather than weight if you had a large, but very light package. TRWTF was that this was completely up to the couriers who usually didn't have a tape measure and never had a scale while making up the airbill. So a lot of things got guesstimated.

  • AverageJon (unregistered)

    This is VERY green! Just think of how many carbon atoms are being sequestered in that packaging.

  • Dark Dell (unregistered)

    I have packaged-up your screws. Pray i don't screw-up your packages!

  • (cs) in reply to Dark Dell
    Dark Dell:
    I have packaged-up your screws. Pray i don't screw-up your packages!

    FINALLY a use of the Vader meme that isn't lame!

  • RickD (unregistered) in reply to Safely anonymous
    Safely anonymous:
    Philipp:
    Postal services and couriers should start to charge based on volume instead of just weight. That way there would be an incentive to use more efficient packaging.

    I am pretty sure the limiting capacity of most parts of the transportation chain is rather volume or number of packets instead of their weight.

    Actually, most do. Generally, it's a minimum weight per cubic foot so that they don't go broke hauling styrofoam.

    Realistically, packages like that will fall under minimum charge (the fee you get regardless of size) anyway.

    In the late 1970s (so long ago Google couldn't find it) someone developed a tractor (truck/lorry/prime mover) designed to fit entirely under the semi-trailer. This was to allow extra-long trailers for hauling bulky but otherwise "underweight" cargo. It didn't sell, mostly because the drivers hated being down at "automobile" level, and it looked amazing on the road -- like a driverless trailer rolling along on its own. Seeing THAT was a WTF.
  • Anon (unregistered)

    As a counter example to crazy packaging - I once order a bunch of stuff from Office Depot, amongst the items was a box cutter. When we received the stuff it came in one big box and one of those gray plastic bag thingies. Inside the bag? The box cutter. I just imagine that some genius at Office Depot shipping office, looked at our order and thought "wait a minute. If I put the box cutter in the box, how will they open the box?" It's kinda sad that a brief flash of "common" sense is such a surprise.

  • Chris M. (unregistered)

    For CMOS batteries, I think Oracle (Sun) takes the packaging cake. We've had two System Controller batteries die on us recently on some older servers, and each time they send us a big box (about one cubic foot) filled with airbags and a padded manila envelope about the size of a DVD case. In that envelope is a disposable anti-static wrist strap and a smaller manila envelope about 1 inch x 2 inches with a single CR1225 battery.

  • Anon (unregistered) in reply to Jay
    Jay:
    Bear in mind that too little packaging would be a bigger problem. Which is a worse waste of resources: An expensive item is shipped with twice as much styrofoam as is really necessary, thus wasting the styrofoam? Or an expensive item is shipped with half as much styrofoam as is really necessary, and is damaged in transit, thus wasting the resource expended to produce the expensive item?

    Which would be an insightful comment, if we weren't talking about screws. If anything, there are two major WTF's at play here. 1) why do they even sell individual screws? Sell them in packs of 10. They're cheap enough that nobody will care if they pay $1 for 10 screws and end up not using the other 9. 2) Don't sell screws at all, just use standard screws and tell you customers that they need flat headed, whatever sized, philips head (not fucking torx or some wacky shit) screw and your customer can pop down to the Home Depot (or similar) and buy one themselves for about $0.05 and have it immediately.

  • (cs)

    Technology firms aren't the only ones who don't get the concept of efficient packaging.

    I just came from lunch at Wendy's. I ordered a salad and baked potato, to stay. Ok, two little trays, and a knife and fork. Four items.

    No, they put both potato and salad in covered containers, each in it's own plastic bag. Then the indivudally wrapped fork and knife, salt, pepper, napkins and dressing in another little plastic bag. Then the whole thing in one giant plastic bag served up on a tray.

    That's 8 extra pieces of plastic (6 if you ignore the utensils) for no reason, and it all went into the trash because there wasn't a recylcing bin.

  • (cs)

    Actually, if you look at the order sheet in the last one, you'll see that he didn't order 65 screws. He ordered 1 screw 65 times. Therefore, he gets 65 packages, because Dell thinks he needs to resell them individually to 65 different customers.

  • iMalc (unregistered)

    See I bet Dell have one of those shrink ray thingys that shrinks everything down to 5% of its original size for storage. Now if they didn't store everything in large boxes, they wouldn't be able to find things later.

  • MG (unregistered) in reply to frits
    frits:
    DaveyDaveDave:
    Mr Green:
    If the packaging is worth more than the screws, this has got me thinking...order a very large quantity of screws from Dell and start a business selling padded envelopes/jiffy bags = profit!

    **with a FREE screw!!!

    Good plan for legalized prostitution.

    "I'll take one of those $25 used bags, please."

    Except a prostitute is the walking definition of a "used bag."

  • (cs) in reply to Raymond Chen
    Raymond Chen:
    Actually, if you look at the order sheet in the last one, you'll see that he didn't order 65 screws. He ordered 1 screw 65 times. Therefore, he gets 65 packages, because Dell thinks he needs to resell them individually to 65 different customers.

    So the question is whether Dell even makes a distinction between 65 x 1 or 1 x 65. It might end up the same by the time it gets to Fulfillment.

    On a related note, you know what else annoys me? When cashiers scan multiple items individually instead of punching "qty 10" or whatever on their register and scanning it once. I was in line at Wal-Mart the other day with my one item and the guy in front of me had 10 bottles of bleach, 75 candy bars, 15 bags of chips, 10 bottles of Tylenol, ... the cashier was scanning all of that in, One. Bleeping. Item. At. A. Time.

    I wonder what kind of party he was having, though...

  • (cs) in reply to dgvid
    dgvid:
    trtrwtf:
    ... So you see, this is the most efficient system possible - truly, we live in the best of all possible worlds.

    Scene opens on HERMES, LEELA, BENDER, and CANDIDE seated at the conference table. DR PANGLOSS, in lab coat and bedroom slippers enters stage right.

    PANGLOSS: Good news, everyone! Dell has hired us to deliver a package.

    You win so many Internets.

  • swschrad (unregistered)

    And the best part is... Dell is saving energy and transportation costs on the screws as well. for those are the very screws that were originally left out of the laptops when they were manufactured! win-win-win.

  • Sarah (unregistered)

    Owh yeah this is just so green, they give that much packaging so you can plant them and grow some trees! Now that is what I call green!

  • ÃÆâ€â„ (unregistered)

    I thought these kinds of articles only happened on Fridays...

  • ÃÆâ€â„ (unregistered) in reply to Nagesh Kukunoor
    Nagesh Kukunoor:
    A large package is not a WTF. A large package certifies as to the importance of the recipient. My cousin in Mumbai sent me one lakh of bindis for my daughter, and the box was so small the postal clerk laughed at my expense. I beat the bhai chod bhayee chod with a stick, and when I next visit my cousin I will eat palak paneer then squat on his floor to show my displeasure.

    Wow, you're really trying hard to keep up the indian ruse, aren't you?

  • (cs) in reply to ÃÆâ€â„
    ÃÆâ€â„:
    Nagesh Kukunoor:
    A large package is not a WTF. A large package certifies as to the importance of the recipient. My cousin in Mumbai sent me one lakh of bindis for my daughter, and the box was so small the postal clerk laughed at my expense. I beat the bhai chod bhayee chod with a stick, and when I next visit my cousin I will eat palak paneer then squat on his floor to show my displeasure.

    Wow, you're really trying hard to keep up the indian ruse, aren't you?

    He's definitely not from India.

  • trtrwtf (unregistered) in reply to Nagesh
    Nagesh:
    ÃÆâ€â„:
    Nagesh Kukunoor:
    A large package is not a WTF. A large package certifies as to the importance of the recipient. My cousin in Mumbai sent me one lakh of bindis for my daughter, and the box was so small the postal clerk laughed at my expense. I beat the bhai chod bhayee chod with a stick, and when I next visit my cousin I will eat palak paneer then squat on his floor to show my displeasure.

    Wow, you're really trying hard to keep up the indian ruse, aren't you?

    He's definitely not from India.

    But give him credit - he's certainly better informed than your typical casual racist defamer of billions at a go. I mean, he's heard of palak paneer and everything.

  • trtrwtf (unregistered) in reply to trtrwtf
    trtrwtf:
    But give him credit - he's certainly better informed than your typical casual racist defamer of billions* at a go. I mean, he's heard of palak paneer and everything.

    Sorry. 1.18 billion, plus Indians living abroad... probably not plural billions. My bad.

  • only me (unregistered) in reply to Mr Green
    Mr Green:
    The packaging costs more than the thing it's packaging.

    Some with soft drinks in fast-food places. The cup costs more than the drink.

  • FuBar (unregistered) in reply to dgvid
    dgvid:
    trtrwtf:
    ...So you see, this is the most efficient system possible - truly, we live in the best of all possible worlds.
    Scene opens on HERMES, LEELA, BENDER, and CANDIDE seated at the conference table. DR PANGLOSS, in lab coat and bedroom slippers enters stage right.

    PANGLOSS: Good news, everyone! Dell has hired us to deliver a package.

    Wow, totally better than what I was going to do to this, namely, point out that the unregistered "trtrwtf" wasted an opportunity - s/he could just as easily have posted under then name "Pangloss".
  • trtrwtf (unregistered) in reply to FuBar
    FuBar:
    dgvid:
    trtrwtf:
    ...So you see, this is the most efficient system possible - truly, we live in the best of all possible worlds.
    Scene opens on HERMES, LEELA, BENDER, and CANDIDE seated at the conference table. DR PANGLOSS, in lab coat and bedroom slippers enters stage right.

    PANGLOSS: Good news, everyone! Dell has hired us to deliver a package.

    Wow, totally better than what I was going to do to this, namely, point out that the unregistered "trtrwtf" wasted an opportunity - s/he could just as easily have posted under then name "Pangloss".

    Yeah, couldn't be arsed. If you got it, you got it the first time.

  • phew (unregistered) in reply to WhiskeyJack
    WhiskeyJack:
    On a related note, you know what else annoys me? When cashiers scan multiple items individually instead of punching "qty 10" or whatever on their register and scanning it once. I was in line at Wal-Mart the other day with my one item and the guy in front of me had 10 bottles of bleach, 75 candy bars, 15 bags of chips, 10 bottles of Tylenol, ... the cashier was scanning all of that in, One. Bleeping. Item. At. A. Time.

    TRWTF is expecting a clerk a Wal-Mart to be able to count!

  • (cs) in reply to Philipp
    Philipp:
    Postal services and couriers should start to charge based on volume instead of just weight. That way there would be an incentive to use more efficient packaging.

    I am pretty sure the limiting capacity of most parts of the transportation chain is rather volume or number of packets instead of their weight.

    They have so started in the UK.

  • (cs) in reply to WhiskeyJack
    WhiskeyJack:
    Raymond Chen:
    Actually, if you look at the order sheet in the last one, you'll see that he didn't order 65 screws. He ordered 1 screw 65 times. Therefore, he gets 65 packages, because Dell thinks he needs to resell them individually to 65 different customers.

    So the question is whether Dell even makes a distinction between 65 x 1 or 1 x 65. It might end up the same by the time it gets to Fulfillment.

    On a related note, you know what else annoys me? When cashiers scan multiple items individually instead of punching "qty 10" or whatever on their register and scanning it once. I was in line at Wal-Mart the other day with my one item and the guy in front of me had 10 bottles of bleach, 75 candy bars, 15 bags of chips, 10 bottles of Tylenol, ... the cashier was scanning all of that in, One. Bleeping. Item. At. A. Time.

    I wonder what kind of party he was having, though...

    Two students at the checkout with a loaf of bread and 16 crates of beer.

    "We having a party, then?" says one to the other.

    "No, why?" comes the reply.

    "Well, what's all that food for?" asks the first.

  • (cs)

    ... and of course if you're getting something delivered to your home (we're in the UK again where we don't have mailboxes on sticks at the end of the drive), it's too big to put through your letterbox, so when you're not in (as you're at work when the postman comes) you get a message that you've got to go and pick it up from the depot. And the depot is sited in the middle of the biggest traffic-jam in town.

  • Mike (unregistered) in reply to Bill's Kid
    Bill's Kid:
    TRWTF is somebody ordering screws from Dell.

    I do it all the time. Not just from Dell, but from every manufacturer. They all ship parts this way, and as an IT admin, my job is easier when I just follow the procedure and order the parts the way they're listed. Could I find a supplier for our screws that would ship them in bulk? Sure. But I'm not going to, because I already have a job to do.

  • Chuck (unregistered)

    Of course Dell is doing it for the planet. More cardboard = more trees need to be raised. More trees = more green.

  • Mike (unregistered) in reply to Anon
    Anon:
    Jay:
    Bear in mind that too little packaging would be a bigger problem. Which is a worse waste of resources: An expensive item is shipped with twice as much styrofoam as is really necessary, thus wasting the styrofoam? Or an expensive item is shipped with half as much styrofoam as is really necessary, and is damaged in transit, thus wasting the resource expended to produce the expensive item?

    Which would be an insightful comment, if we weren't talking about screws. If anything, there are two major WTF's at play here. 1) why do they even sell individual screws? Sell them in packs of 10. They're cheap enough that nobody will care if they pay $1 for 10 screws and end up not using the other 9. 2) Don't sell screws at all, just use standard screws and tell you customers that they need flat headed, whatever sized, philips head (not fucking torx or some wacky shit) screw and your customer can pop down to the Home Depot (or similar) and buy one themselves for about $0.05 and have it immediately.

    Dell and other manufacturers don't sell screws for the benefit of the home user, they're sold mostly to enterprise customers. The enterprise customer does not want to pop down to the Home Depot, they want the product to be supplied by the manufacturer (usually under the contract they're bound to), and they don't want their $25/hr employees running to the hardware store, with the added liability of having an employee off-premises.

  • Bass (unregistered) in reply to Bill Higgins

    Yeah, I'm totally sure Dell's hardware supplier sends them separately-packed screws.

  • Herby (unregistered)

    And this is why "deboxing" videos are popular on YouTube!

  • JennyJenny (unregistered) in reply to Zost
    Zost:
    Cardboard boxes can be made from many different recycled materials. Wooden ones can only be made from recycled trees.

    Cardboard boxes are made out of pine chips. They can be recycled INTO other things, but have to be made out of virgin wood.

  • Matthew Brown (unregistered)

    They even beat the license key printed on a piece of paper in an envelope in a box; in their case, the license key would be printed on the external invoice taped (in an envelope) on the outside, and the fairly big box attached would be completely and utterly empty.

    On the other hand, at least SGI went bust from such stupidity.

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