It is by no means unusual for poorly restrained liners to pull down during discharge when the spout has been partially restricted by operators, which in turn can complicate the tying off and de-coupling of the FIBC from the feed station.

RIBC's

For batch operations, there are considerable operational benefits associated with the use of RIBCs. The elimination of the need for liner tensioning arrangements combined with the automating of outlet activation can provide a useful reduction in the amount of down time required to effect a "change-over" of material. Discharge from a correctly designed RIBC will be considerably more consistent and reliable than that from an FIBC operated in batch mode.

Storage and transport

In terms of outright storage volume available, the FIBC offers greater capacity for a given storage space compared to its RIBC counterpart (which will offer less volume for the same space by virtue of having a discharge section), and offers far superior space utilisation when stored empty. In response to the empty storage (and hence lower return costs) advantages of FIBC's, collapsible RIBC's have been developed which feature shallow rigid convergent sections combined with flexible walls which are supported within a folding frame, thus the space occupied by the RIBC is reduced by approximately 60%. If pressure sensitive materials are being stored, then the use of RIBC's can provide a useful stacking option without the need for racking to isolate layers of FIBC's from compaction under load.