Layer Saver takes the squish out of shipping
BY ANNIE ALLEMAN For Sun-Times Media
Frame work: Layer Saver president Charlie Kiolbasa (front) along with his wife Cyndy Kiolbasa, who is the company's executive vice president, go over their Layer Saver with Dennis O'Neil, who is the branch director of Blue Line food Service in Calumet City. O'Neil was one of Layer Saver's first clients. | Mary Compton~For Sun-Times Media
Layer Saver
Phone: (630) 325-7287
Website: layersaver.com
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An idea with the potential to revolutionize the shipping industry started at Michael’s craft store.
That’s where Cyndy Kiolbasa took her husband Charles, president and chief executive officer of Burr-Ridge-based Layer Saver, when he wanted to create a solution to the biggest problem he saw in shipping goods: the squish problem.
“My husband Charlie was originally in the folding carton industry. You convert paper rolls into boxes. So if you were to buy a pasta box, we actually made that box. We cut the paper, we printed it, and the company would fill it with their products,” she said. “He would make these and ship it to the customer and it would get there and be damaged, and the customer wouldn’t pay for them. It wasn’t our fault, we shipped it out fine. And the trucking companies would say it wasn’t their fault. So you end up eating the waste. The waste at the end of your profit and loss sheet is never addressed. It’s just expected (you’ll) have damage in shipping and everyone’s always accepted that.”
When Charlie Kiolbasa got out of that industry, he knew there was a better way to ship things.
“So I took him to Michael’s craft shop and he bought balsam wood and literally mimicked what is now a Layer Saver frame,” she said.
With nothing but wood, glue, tape and a lot of old-fashioned, American ingenuity, they took their idea to patent attorneys in Chicago. Searches proved what they suspected: no one else was doing anything like this.
Layer Saver’s patented double-deck shipping frame allows the producer to ship goods without risk of crushing the bottom layers. This maximizes cube utilization in a truck, railcar or ocean container, thereby reducing the number of trucks or rail cars used.
Layer Saver is one of 75 finalists from more than 400 entries for the 2011 Chicago Innovation Awards.
“With our frame, you can take a whole pallet of goods … on the bottom deck and put another full pallet on the top deck,” she said. “Instead of sending out three trucks a week, you only have to send out two trucks a week. So the carbon footprint gets reduced, you’re not paying as much for shipping and fuel, and it amounts from there.
“In a railcar, there is no system to do any double stacking. Now, they pound wood every couple of pallets to hold it in place so it doesn’t shift,” she said. “We have a customer that ships orange juice, and it takes him four and a half hours to fill one car because of this laborious method. If they use Layer Savers, it takes 45 minutes to fill a car.”
They’ve been using the system since January 2010 and have had no problems, she said.
“You can ship 6,000 pounds on one Layer Saver unit. It’s not flimsy; it’s really strong. It’s heavy-duty, United States steel,” she said.
They are really excited about the Chicago Innovation Awards. Cindy Kiolbasa recently attended an all-day seminar class at the Kellogg’s School of Management, having received a scholarship for that class.
“I don’t know how much further we’ll get, but we’re excited,” she said.
They have developed different versions of the Layer Saver frame: one for the truck, one for the railcar, and a really large one called BUF — Bulk Utility Frame — for companies that have large cargo.
“It’s expanding. We’re trying to meet the needs of shippers. We’re able to adapt it because it is somewhat of a simple solution.”
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