| Did You Know?
Medical Design Technology (MDT) is a trade publication for the medical design industry.
Each month they send out a question to professionals in the medical design field, looking for perspectives on a variety of topics. In the March issue, the question posed was, "What is the greatest obstacle in the success of the design of a device that's to be directly used by patients in their home or on their body?"
Jessica Irons' response was one of the responses chosen to be published in the March issue.
The link to the writeup can be found HERE. Please click forward to page 12.
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Industrial Team Tears it Down
Ten members of the industrial team recently participated in a workshop in Findlay, OH to learn about how to apply the concepts of Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DFMA) to real world projects. The workshop was conducted by David Meeker, a professor at MIT, and was the final step of a five month online training course focused on product development.
 At the workshop, attendees learned about the DFMA concept, performed competitive teardowns of HVAC and Medical units, and used DFMA software tools to quantify the value of replacing several of the existing parts with EPP.
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Greetings!
Welcome to the April 9 issue of Swing the Bat! It's been a busy year already and it's only April! Thanks to everyone who has submitted ideas for content - they are all much appreciated! Please keep the great stories coming.
Thanks!
Jessica |
Sonoco Cleans Up at GE
We have all heard stories about how long it takes to convert some customers over to a new package format, but normally we talk in months not years. Well for the GE - Protective Solutions Team in Nashville, it took nine years to finally convert them to using SonoPost for the washer segment.
Over the last few years, GE has invested $800M in bringing back manufacturing from outside the USA to the expanding Appliance Park in Louisville, KY. This increase in production needs combined with innovative work by the Sonoco team, resulted in converting a new refrigerator model over to new packaging.
The team built upon its success with a refrigerator pack program that started in 2012 and were recently awarded a program to convert a 5M unit per year Washer Program to SonoPosts. This new business, planned for April 2013, represents $3M in new packaging sales for Sonoco Protective Solutions.
Please contact Jim Lowry for more details. |
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Sonoco Revs Up for Harley
Harley Davidson, based in Milwaukee, is starting up a new production line in their York, PA factory. On this new line, Harley wanted to have the entire motorcycle brake system pre-assembled, with the lines already pre-bled, and connected to all brake assembly units so they could be attached right to the motorcycle at the assembly plant.
In order to accomplish this, Sonoco engineers worked with Packaging Solutions Limited to use their tote and plastic corrugated inserts in tandem with some Sonoco molded EPP components. Our EPP components attach via the plastic corrugated and hold the hand brake, foot brake, master cylinder, ABS unit, and front & rear calipers in place.
All these parts have the brake lines connected to them, making the job more difficult, as placement of the brake components within the tote had to ensure that stress was not put on the lines in any area.
First shipments from Sonoco out of the Owosso plant are scheduled for the week of April 20, 2013.
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Thanks for Reading!
Hopefully you enjoyed this edition of Swing the Bat!
Please help ensure the continuation of this newsletter by providing ideas for content! There are no bad ideas and we're always interested to hear about the latest project wins, news, events, and more. Please e-mail your ideas for stories/content to Jessica Irons.
Thank you!!
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