Export Packing and Crating

Packing is engineering, not wrapping

A machine that survives a road trip across Maharashtra will not necessarily survive nine weeks in a container, and the difference is not how much bubble wrap was used. Ocean freight subjects cargo to sustained vibration, repeated impact during handling, condensation cycling as the container passes through climate zones, and salt-laden air throughout.

The failure modes are specific. Bare machined surfaces corrode. Fasteners work loose under vibration. Cases collapse where the load path was never designed. Every one of those is preventable at the packing stage and expensive to fix at the destination, where you have no supply chain.

ISPM 15 is not optional

Any solid wood packaging leaving India — cases, crates, pallets, dunnage, bracing — must be heat treated or fumigated and stamped with the ISPM 15 mark showing the country code, the treatment facility and the treatment applied. This is an international phytosanitary standard, not a customer preference.

Non-compliant timber gets the consignment refused, treated at destination at your cost, or in some jurisdictions destroyed. It is one of the few packing failures that can result in the goods never arriving at all. We use treated and stamped timber as standard, and we keep the treatment certificates on the file for the destination broker.

Plywood, OSB and engineered board are exempt because the manufacturing process already destroys pests — but only if the case is genuinely made of them throughout. A plywood case with untreated solid battens is a non-compliant case.

The methods, and when each is right

The specification follows the cargo and the route, not a standard menu. What we use and why.

• Heat-treated close-boarded cases for machinery, with internal bracing to the mounting points rather than to the skin
• Open-slat crates where the cargo is rigid and cost matters more than weather protection
• Vacuum barrier packing with desiccant for bare metal, tooling and electronics on long ocean transits
• VCI film and paper for ferrous parts where a full barrier is not practical
• Skid and cradle bases sized so a forklift can lift from either axis without the tines contacting the cargo
• Shock and tilt indicators on anything sensitive, which changes handling behaviour as much as it records it
• Foam-in-place and custom-cut foam for irregular high-value items

Barrier packing and why moisture is the real enemy

A container leaving Nhava Sheva in the monsoon carries humid air. Crossing to a cooler climate, that moisture condenses on the coldest surface — which is usually your cargo. This is container rain, and it is the single most common cause of corrosion claims on India-origin machinery.

A barrier bag with the right desiccant load stops it, and the desiccant quantity is a calculation from the enclosed volume, the barrier permeability and the expected transit duration. Guessing at it means either wasted desiccant or a bag that saturates halfway across the Indian Ocean. We calculate it.

Marking, weights and the paperwork that follows

A case that arrives correctly and cannot be identified is still a problem. Every case gets export marking — consignee, port of discharge, case number, gross and net weight, dimensions, and the handling and sling-point symbols that tell a crane operator on the far side where it is safe to lift.

We produce the packing list from the actual cases as built rather than from the intended plan, because those diverge more often than anyone admits, and a packing list that does not match the physical consignment is a customs problem waiting at the destination.

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