Tier suppliers sit in an awkward position: they must satisfy several OEM packaging standards at once, the part mix changes with every model year, and the packaging is expected to survive years of line-side handling. Most failures we see are not structural – they are change management failures.
Three specifications, one tray
Different plants ask for different footprint standards, different labelling positions and different nest ratios, and each requirement is individually reasonable. The trap is trying to satisfy all of them with one design, which produces a compromised tray that satisfies nobody and is expensive to change later.
In practice it is cheaper to run two or three tray types with clear ownership labelling than one universal compromise.
Part protection comes first, then presentation
The purpose of a part tray is that the arriving part is undamaged and presented predictably. Cosmetic presentation standards from the assembly plant can quietly take priority over this, to the point where the packaging protects itself better than the part. Where those two requirements conflict, ensure the part interface – contact points, retention, separation – is specified first.
Change is constant and must be cheap
Part geometry changes, quantities change, and plants change their requirements. A tray welded from honeycomb panels makes each change expensive, because every revision needs new tooling. Designs built around adjusted inserts, dividers and printed identification absorb changes at a fraction of the cost, even if they cost slightly more per unit to start.
Labelling survives visibility
Automotive labelling requirements are detailed and they get read. Put them where they are legible in the stack, protected from handling contact, and – importantly – where the same position works whether the tray is nested or loaded. Labelling that disappears halfway through the loop is the most common audit finding.
Return ratio drives everything economic
Nest ratio determines how many trucks come back and often dominates the business case. A tray that nests compactly but takes two minutes to de-nest loses its advantage at line speed. Evaluate the ratio as delivered with real operators, not as demonstrated by the supplier.
Do not forget the return leg
The deliberately unexciting part: empties have to come back, be counted, and be stored. Every automotive programme we have supported had a packaging design that worked and a return process that did not, and the whole system failed on the second part. The structure in writing a one page loop procedure is deliberately minimal for exactly this reason.
Packaging approval is a project, not a purchase
OEM packaging approval involves samples, trials, documentation and often a line visit, and it takes longer than the tooling. Programmes that treat it as a purchase order afterthought miss launch windows because the packaging was ready and the approval was not.
Start the approval conversation when the part design is stable enough to know the geometry, not when the trays are finished. The requirements frequently change the design, and discovering that after tooling is the expensive version of the same conversation.
Keep a packaging change log
Every tray revision needs a date, a reason and a part list affected. Without it, a tray change and a part change land together and nobody can attribute a subsequent problem, which is how packaging gets blamed for things it did not cause.
What we can do
We build returnable automotive dunnage and part trays and can hold multiple plant standards in parallel. Send the specifications you have to satisfy and the anticipated part changes, and we will suggest what to standardise on and what to leave flexible.