Product category:
Packaging design materials, equipment and services
News Release from: SolidWorks Corporation
Edited by the Manufacturingtalk Editorial
Team on 18 October 2006
The ultimate package deal
PI3 understands that to succeed in today's fiercely competitive marketplace it must be able to demonstrate true expertise in its chosen field, in this case packaging design
This means fully getting to grips with customer issues, employing the right people with the right knowledge, and using the right tools and technology to enable all these skills and attributes to inform the end result For PI3 this means a design to manufacture strategy built around SolidWorks
This article was originally published on Manufacturingtalk on 12 Jan 2005 at 8.00am (UK)
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Designing a bottle is only half the battle.
The sophisticated modern consumer, it seems, demands more from packaging than the ability to transport whatever's inside.
Gone are the days when packaging design meant simply coming up with compelling graphics and illustrations to cover a box.
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Increasingly, packaging has to work far harder, playing a role in everything from protecting and dispensing the product to helping it fly off the shelves.
" To call what we do generically as packaging design is a bit of a misnomer," says Eric Connolly, Production Director at PI3.
"Modern packaging is expected to behave more like a product in itself.
Unfortunately, though, no-one is prepared to pay product prices for packaging.
Achieving this balance takes some effort.
That's where a consultancy like ours really adds value." Boxing clever West London-based PI3 has been developing innovative packaging solutions for a range of high profile clients since 1984.
By focusing exclusively on packaging, it believes it stands apart from the more general design agencies among its competition, and a client roster that includes household brands such as Johnnie Walker, Guinness, Pringles, Heinz, Fairy, Immac, Shell, Windolene and Pantene suggests this approach has been paying off.
PI3's emphasis on innovation can be seen not only in the use of clever mechanisms and unusual materials for its client work but also in PI3 Futures, a separate organisation dedicated to exploring new consumer and technology trends and translating them into practical, forward-thinking packaging solutions.
Central to PI3's ability to deliver the innovative packaging on which it has built its reputation is a team of designers using SolidWorks on a day-to-day basis.
SolidWorks is at the heart of most PI3 projects, being used throughout the design cycle, from concept creation through detailed design and verification to final production.
PI3 has been using SolidWorks for some eight years, during which time the software's evolving modelling capabilities have frequently been pushed to their limits.
In particular, PI3's designers have always been prone to putting SolidWorks' surfacing capabilities through their paces.
On the surface "We design a lot of bottles," explains Dave Salmon, "and as with all our designs we strive to combine style and practicality.
A classic approach is a through-handled bottle, and this has historically been a difficult prospect for CAD systems.
The many compound surfaces around the handle do make life difficult and even in earlier versions of SolidWorks we would struggle to get it right.
But SolidWorks has come along apace with its surfacing and as a consequence things like through-handles bottles no longer make me shake with fear." Unusually for a packaging design agency, PI3 also finds itself making extensive use of SolidWorks' multibody and assembly capabilities.
A recent project for Syngenta, one of PI3's industrial clients, illustrated the importance of this facet of the SolidWorks tool set.
Farm hand PI3 was charged with developing a packaging solution for distributing a range of agrochemicals to smallholder farmers in rural China.
The volumes and cost of the products involved indicated a shuttle system should be developed whereby discrete quantities of the chemicals could be drawn from a larger central reservoir.
In essence the system would operate in the same way as a pub optic, with the glass represented by a sealed container the farmer can take away and the whisky bottle replaced by a 15-litre container.
As Salmon explains, though, the optic analogy only works to an extent: "The agrochemicals involved could be weedkillers, herbicides or pesticides.
We need to ensure there was no chance of drawing off the wrong type of product by mistake.
This was achieved through a combination of careful colour coding and a lock and key device that would ensure, for instance, a herbicide shuttle would only fit a herbicide optic.
We could have no possibility of a dispensing a weedkiller as a herbicide." Furthermore, the effectiveness and strength of the products demanded that the distribution system needed to be absolutely leak proof and capable of delivering exceptionally accurate doses.
PI3's solution was a sophisticated mechanism engineered from no fewer than 14 individual parts in the optic assembly alone.
"The Syngenta project is an extreme example of having to deliver what is essentially a complex product for throw-away prices," explains Salmon.
"It was a real challenge - not many packaging designs include so many moving parts - but the ability to model assemblies and part interaction within SolidWorks helped enormously.
"It's great to be able to modify one part and find related parts in the assembly are updated automatically," he adds.
"Coming from a drawing board background that is a rare treat.
Of course you have to be a little careful how you define the relationships but this really was a great benefit in this project." Worth the weight? PI3 also demonstrates its commitment to its clients by advising on how their packaging will perform before it reaches its destination.
"The bottle you buy off the shelf in the supermarket may have spent some of its life at the bottom of a pile of six identically loaded pallets," explains Connolly.
"The best design in the world is no good if it arrives in the shop damaged by the weight of the bottles above it." Connolly and his team therefore regularly call on the integrated FEA tools within SolidWorks.
"Being able to perform top loading analysis with COSMOS without leaving the modelling environment is a real boon," he says.
Complete package While it is natural to expect a specialist packaging design consultancy to be utilising surfacing and production tools within a CAD environment it is perhaps a little unusual to find one like PI3 making full use of the assembly and analytical capabilities too.
Fortunately, in SolidWorks it was found exactly the right solution.
"Technically fantastic.
Value for money.
A great package," says Connolly.
"Very similar to what we offer, in fact.".
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