Farason Corporation Application Spotlight :
Farason Corporation Application Spotlight : Small Package Container Small Package Container
Industry
Packaging Machinery
Application Competitive Bid Development , The Challenge Robot Integration Design
Printer Farason faced X7™ a challenge when a
Materials prominent Onyx American ® snack food company needed a custom solution to address small package collecting and transport for their cheeseball products , when all conventional solutions had already been considered and rejected . The heart of the challenge are the products themselves
For over thirty years
:,“ Farason
the
Corporation nature has of designed
the bags , and delivered custom automation and robotics systems with to manufacturers static , , non-uniform shipping over 900 machines edges to ,
North America , Asia , South America and Europe . The
and low mass ,” Design Support
Farason team added Markforged 3D printers to boost
Engineer design and production , Christian opportunities Weder , aligned said with . “ It ’ s
Farason ’ s commitment to delivering one-of-a-kind hard to get all these pieces into a solutions that are closely tailored to specific challenges box .” their customers face . The Farason Coporation designed custom 3D Printed small package containers used to collect and transport products .
The Farason Corporation team came up with an unusual idea , one that inverts the packing process , one that the team affectionately
The calls Challenge the “ stein ” project because it involves a robot lifting a tall
Farason container faced a challenge , and when pushing a prominent out American the snack food company needed a custom solution to address items with a movement that looks small package collecting and transport for their cheeseball products like , when someone all conventional pouring solutions out had already a beer been considered stein . and rejected . The heart of the challenge are the products themselves : “ the nature of the bags , with static , non-uniform edges , and low mass ,” Design Support But with the idea in hand , the Engineer , Christian Weder said . “ It ’ s hard to get all these pieces novelty into a box of .” their solution was where they hit the first difficulty . As
Engineer Richard Cook described , “ the designers couldn ’ t get anybody to buy into it .” It was an unusual approach that led some of the team to quickly dismiss it as crazy . “ They said ‘ Why don ’ t you just do X ’,” Richard remembers . “ But , well , X is what the customer didn ’ t want us to do , because they had already tried it and they knew it didn ’ t work . I looked at the idea and thought , ‘ Wow , that ’ s kind of novel . I think I could probably make that work .’” Proving this was the best idea to advance to the customer would come down to the R & D team fully concepting the idea to demonstrate that this approach might win the contract .
But before they tackled the concepts , they had to address
24 FDPP - www . fdpp . co . uk
a second difficulty . The idea proposed would require a set of custom containers to collect the small products , unusual designs
The with Farason very Corporation specific team requirements came up with an unusual . idea , one that inverts the packing process , one that the
No existing on-hand container team affectionately calls the “ stein ” project because it would involves a do robot for lifting testing a tall container how the , and pushing robot out would the items handle with a movement the object that looks , and like someone if the pouring issue out with a beer the stein very . light packages
would be resolved .
But with the idea in hand , the novelty of their solution was where they hit the first difficulty . As Engineer Richard The only Cook described way to , “ the know designers for couldn sure ’ t get would be to prototype creating these original designs in-house . According to Farason , custom containers and transport solutions tend to be expensive , far more than the tight $ 500 fabrication budget per container in the manufacturer ’ s requirements . The idea could work in principle and fail when evaluated for costs .
The Solution
Stein Part printed in Onyx ®
The Farason Corporation team quickly hit on the best way to resolve both difficulties at the same time : they would design the containers to be fabricated via 3D printing with their Markforged X7 using Markforged Onyx industrial 3D printing material . The same material and approach would also be the target production material
for shipping the solution to the customer .
According to Christian Weder , “ Weight savings and cost , obviously , are becoming more of a consideration for our main engineering design team . I think 3D printing fits so well with Farason just because of the way that we design . We tend to use a lot of really complicated machined parts , and that ’ s exactly the part that 3D printing replaces really well because it saves a lot of cost from setup time , machining time , and all that .”
Committing to additive manufacturing allowed the team to source an affordable PVC tube part for the walls of the container instead of a conventional cast PC part that exceeded the entire percontainer budget . A series of 3D printed parts clamp the container assembly together and house all of the critical features for interfacing with other machines . This includes the positions for the magnets in the base to locate and hold onto the transport mechanism as well as the mounting position for the “ handle ” component the robot grabs onto in order to lift , swing , and dispense the items . An aluminum tie rod inserted through these parts links the printed components of the container column , running the entire length from the top to the bottom .
After proving the concept , the Farason Corporation team won the bid , and produced over 80 Small Package Containers . Their approach to design for additive manufacturing and “ printability ,” ensures that they can maintain and even continue to optimize them deployed in the field .
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