By: Rebecca Fowler, director of mechanical engineering for Spee-Dee Packaging Machinery

“To me, a ‘good’ design is one that meets every customer need. For a “good” design to become “great”, it needs to be elegant. An elegant design is one that meets three main criteria: simplicity, quality and power. If filling equipment meets these three important areas, it will ensure quality for both overall operations and end product”.

Simplicity

When it comes to filling and weighing equipment, simplicity means the equipment is designed with clean lines and minimal parts. It should also be intuitive and easy to use. This is important because it minimizes training and ensures that operators can take the correct action every time and avoid the costly mistakes that often happen with other, more complex filling equipment. A simple design also ensures there are no harborage areas, which are important for facility and product safety. In addition, a simple design will have minimal parts and eliminate or reduce premature wear—ultimately extending the life

Quality

For filling equipment to be a quality machine, it must be accurate and perform accurately repeatedly on every single fill. Repeated accuracy is essential. If you fill something too much, you’re wasting product. If you don’t fill it enough, you’re not delivering value to your end-users. At Spee-Dee, our quick response manufacturing (QRM) process ensures repeatable accuracy for every order, large or small. Our engineering, project management, machining, assembly, and service and installation teams work together to make sure every fill will be accurate in our customer’s facilities. 

 Accuracy is also achieved by testing, and testing with actual product. Pre-trial runs help verify how the equipment will run in our customer’s plants and help meet specifications.

Power

It’s also important for filling equipment to be powerful. It must be robust, it must be reliable and it must stand the test of time. This is essential for overall machine maintenance, in addition to uptime and the life of the machine.

After the Sale

These three components—simplicity, quality and power—make a “good” design “great” but there are a few others that ensure a return-on-investment after the sale. One is high-quality materials. Whether that is anti-static plastics when working with waste cells or higher grade aluminum anodization or 316 cell stainless, whatever will provide accurate fills in the maximum number of containers should be tested and ultimately used. Another component is change parts, and more importantly, quick-change parts. This reduces downtime when switching product or container type or size and helps increase production. Finally, a great filling equipment design will allow for future expandability. It should adapt as businesses grow and change to easily fill different container sizes and products in the future.