Although most of the 2012 DuPont Awards for Packaging Innovation went to various types of consumer packaging, including one for Goldfish Sandwich Bread, one of the gold awards was given for a clever industrial design. The CUBE, from Smart Packaging Systems, is a Lego-like system that goes from manufacturer's pallet to retail display floor with almost no reconfiguration or changes required along the way.
Honored by DuPont with a gold award for excellence in innovation and sustainability, the patented CUBE measures 40x48 inches, with a height that can be adjusted from 41 inches to 85 inches. It has the footprint of a standard pallet and sits on top of one while being assembled, and is engineered to support up to three levels of pallet stacking. Its high load compression resistance is 3,000 lb. for a static load and 1,300 lb. for a dynamic load.
Winner of a gold award in the 2012 DuPont Awards for Packaging Innovation, the CUBE is a Lego-like system that goes from manufacturer's pallet to retail display floor with almost no reconfiguration or changes. (Source: Smart Packaging Systems)
The CUBE's parts have been designed for quick and simple assembly and disassembly -- this can be seen clearly in a video that shows how to put one together.
Retail versions can be transformed into durable product displays, cutting down on the labor needed to stack and display merchandise. Easy disassembly and reassembly makes it simple to reuse, and the materials are compostable and recyclable at end of life.
The design reduces the number of pallets and the amount of shrink wrap needed, often eliminating the need for wrapping a pallet assembly with film altogether. Made of an engineered 100-percent paperboard lamination and a combination of recycled and virgin fibers, its laminated and folded paperboard components eliminate the need for corrugated materials. This yields cost savings of approximately 40 percent versus traditional carton and pallet shipping. Traditional methods add secondary and tertiary levels of packaging. In some cases, it can also eliminate the need for wood, cushioning foam, honeycomb, MDF, and metal racks. Some cost benefit analysis figures for the industrial version are here.
DuPont gave the award to Smart Packaging Systems, as well as five other companies that collaborated in developing the CUBE's design and materials. These were: Acme Packaging, the inventor of steel strapping; One Way Display, which makes a paperboard retail display cube for flowers and plants; Incrementia, which contributed design, engineering, and manufacturing of some components to simplify automated assembly; along with Impact Manufacturing and My Compadre LLC.
Winners of the DuPont Awards for Packaging Innovation are recognized for their excellence in innovation, sustainability, and/or cost or waste reduction.
bobjengr, glad we can help you look good by providing information you can use to do your job. I wrote about this because it looked like a clever, well thought-out design and execution of a solution to a common problem. Thanks for letting us know you agree.
Hello Ann--Great post. Well you've done it again, made me look like a hero. My company has been looking for methods to improve packaging and reduce costs for one client; i.e. Universal Assemblies, LLC in East Tennessee. This looks like one method of doing just that. They build to order and have minimal inventory of finished products. The problem arises with companies supplying components in cardboard cartons and not returnables. We then have to purchase suitable containers to re-ship assemblies. These must be robust and go the distance relative to shipments by common carriers, UPS, FedEx, etc. etc. Many thanks for the information. Again--great information.
Jack, I think you're right. To the extent that shrinkwrap provides tamper-proof benefits, then this design can, too. But even shrinkwrap isn't really tamper-proof against a knife or box-cutter.
Tim, thanks for that input. Interesting to know that others have aimed at something similar in a homebrew version. Clearly, this has been a problem that needed solving for some time.
This is a very clever idea. Anything that can reduce the waste stream is a plus. Now if we just get consumers to quit spending money on cheap, disposable products!
I'm not really sure that they are aiming for it to be tamperproof, per se. It sounds more like something that would contain the tamperproof items for individual sale and this would be unfolded to create the display.
This a great waste reduction. At a previous employer, we used similar home built contraptions to hold components on pallets. The main reason was for cost savings. A pre-made and well engineered solution like this would have definitely helped with some damaged goods.
I agree, Beth - very cool. And the reduction in material cost and waste reduction are awesome benefits. I also think it is more aesthetically pleasing than the old wooden pallets - making their delivery straight to the retail floor more palatable in some venues.
What a great idea. Seems this team thought things through in a number of directions, including the move to retail display. I'd like to see this packaging gain traction.
For 3D printing to make the jump from rapid prototyping to manufacturing, engineers will need to find easier ways to move products from their CAD screens to their printers.
Gigabit and PoE are two networking technologies moving ahead in tandem as industrial users power remote Ethernet devices such as IP security cameras at 1,000 Mbps over existing CAT5 cable.
New versions of BASF's Ecovio line are both compostable and designed for either injection molding or thermoforming. These combinations are becoming more common for the single-use bioplastics used in food service and food packaging applications, but are still not widely available.
From Dell / Intel® New Paradigms in Design Work Scott Hamilton, vertical market strategist for Dell Precision workstations, 5/2/2013 5
Early in my career, I worked as a draftsman and remember the days of drawing on vellum with numbered pencils and Mylar with plastic lead. This was a fun experience in the sense that I ...
I've been using workstations for more than 10 years and love finding ways to get more performance from my system. With demanding professional applications that require more power each ...
A lasting memory from my first job as an engineer in an auto assembly plant is standing on hard concrete at six in the morning, vending-machine coffee clutched in hand, listening to ...
For industrial control applications, or even a simple assembly line, that machine can go almost 24/7 without a break. But what happens when the task is a little more complex? That’s where the “smart” machine would come in. The smart machine is one that has some simple (or complex in some cases) processing capability to be able to adapt to changing conditions. Such machines are suited for a host of applications, including automotive, aerospace, defense, medical, computers and electronics, telecommunications, consumer goods, and so on. This radio show will show what’s possible with smart machines, and what tradeoffs need to be made to implement such a solution.
To save this item to your list of favorite Design News content so you can find it later in your Profile page, click the "Save It" button next to the item.
If you found this interesting or useful, please use the links to the services below to share it with other readers. You will need a free account with each service to share an item via that service.
Tweet This
2 
