Of the hills and plains of one wave

I packed a total of more than twenty boxes during my move last year to a beautiful town located on the edge of the Black Forest.

While taping up my boxes for the move, I noticed that sometimes the edges of the lid flaps and bottom were close together and sometimes there was a gap between them. But how is this possible, after all, when all the boxes are the same size, barring a manufacturing error?

What is to blame is what characterises the quality, properties and load-bearing capacity of such a box: wool.

Isn’t there a ‘perfect wool’ in corrugated cardboard boxes as described by a pop-rock band from Hesse, Germany?

But yes, ideally there is a perfect wool. The reason for these slight dimensional variations in production is rather due to the folding of the box during their manufacture. It depends on whether the stocking took place on the hill (highest point) or the plain (lowest point) of the wool in question. In some cases, these folds can result in small gaps when the bottom or lid is closed. There are fixed tolerance values for such production variations, which also take into account, for example, changes in climate as an influencing factor.

So if you find a small gap next time you close the lid of your box, take comfort: you are probably in the valley of a near-perfect wave.

Author:Petr, Product Manager