Golden designs new box

OLD FORGE, Pa. - Don't tell the folks at Golden Technologies that a box is a box is a box. They know better. The company recently created a new box design to help ensure that lift chairs make it to providers in one piece. "We did have freight damages," said Gary Farley, vice president of operations. "Unfortunately, when it leaves the dock-and we ship all over the world-you are at the mercy of how may times that chair is going to be handled." On many occasions, Farley said, damaged chairs were returned to Golden in such a state that he nearly got sick to his stomach. That started a push last year to improve the packaging for all of the company's products. The result, he said, is that "everything inside the Golden house is now shipping out in a more secure and better way than before." The new lift chair box debuted earlier this year and features three separate components. The first includes hard foam pieces that keep the bottom of the chair from sitting directly on the bottom of the box, preventing damage to the chair's landing legs. The second component is a box sleeve, which, among other things, supports any weight that may be placed on top of the box and prevents the sides from buckling. The final component is a lid placed over the top of the sleeve. A banding machine then wraps three shipping bands around each box to keep it firmly together. The new design makes it much easier for dealers to remove chairs from their boxes. Occasionally, to remove a chair, a provider would have to flip the box over, cut open the bottom, flip it back and cut open the top, sometimes slicing into the chair, said Pat O'Brien, communications manager. "This is more efficient and better for the chair," she said. "They cut the banding, lift the lid off, lift the sleeve off and POOF!-they have their chair." HME