“It’s like shipping spaghetti.”

After years of shipping damage, glass companies, such as Atlanta-based Southern Aluminum Finishing (SAF), have had to make some changes to their inventory and shipping processes.

Due to ongoing shipping damage and rising costs, SAF has announced its decision to reduce deliveries of extrusions over 19 feet.

The company has extrusions that are 1/16 inch thick and 24 feet long, which it likens to shipping spaghetti.

“Because…we ship it on a common carrier that also ships everything from cereal to boxes of clothes and car engines, 24-foot lengths are almost guaranteed to twist, like spaghetti,” explains John McClatchey. , vice president of sales and marketing.

“We, and everyone who ships extrusions in our industry, have been plagued with shipping damage…and it’s especially bad when we ship aluminum sheets and when we ship shapes made of aluminum,” says McClatchey.

Even though damage claims have caused the company to make changes, 24-foot extrusions will still be available; only they will no longer be shipped by freight less than truck (LTL).

“People will have to pick them up, or we can deliver on a dedicated truck,” says CEO Penn McClatchey.

To circumvent these changes, the company invested in extrusion manufacturing equipment to cut to length.

“If all lengths are less than 19ft, we can ship LTL as before,” says the CEO.

John McClatchey explains that the decision to stop shipping longer extrusions via LTL was a long time in coming.

“What changed, and the straw that broke the camel’s back, was notified by the freight lines that [for] anything 20 feet or more, they would charge us up to $2,000 more as soon as we go over 19 feet and 11 inches,” says John McClatchey.