Project BackgroundMany dry ice machines on the current market are designed to create dry ice on-site and then immediately dispense it; however, these machines require permits and must adhere to many regulations to use. The aim of our project is to circumvent these permits and restrictions by storing previously-made dry ice and dispensing it in specific amounts when needed. Also, the repeated motion of scooping dry ice by employees has caused injuries similar to carpel tunnel; and so, the machine must prevent the use of injury-prone motion.
Because the machine was designed for integration into the packing process at Life Technologies, the final design considered the specific needs of the company. Nevertheless, we took into consideration any general issues biotech companies may encounter during the packaging and distributing process. |
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Life Technologies, Inc. Project Scope
Our goal was to build an ergonomic and eco-friendly automated dry ice dispensing mechanism which decreases the dry ice usage for product packaging and assembly time within the Life Technologies, Inc. distribution center. The machine was designed to increase labor efficiency, to promote better working conditions for employees ergonomically, and to lower carbon dioxide exposure.
Specific issues the machine addressed were preventing the dry ice from clumping together while in storage, properly dispensing a specified amount, and slowing down the sublimation of the carbon dioxide. The main focus of the project was to design a type of mechanism to keep the dry ice pellets moving and to also keep it in a storage area that will slow down sublimation. An auger will be included in this mechanism to help keep the pellets separated and dispense them. The machine weighs a specific amount of the dry ice to be dispensed into a shipping container full of products. Hopefully, only a minimal amount of dry ice will be used and none will be thrown out or wasted because it has clumped or sublimed before it was used in packaging. This in turn will limit waste from inefficient use of dry ice and also reduce the carbon footprint of product packing in biotech companies. The completed machine will ideally speed up the distribution processes within Life Technologies, Inc. and also limit the number of ergonomic injuries of the workers in the distribution and packaging center. Limiting the repetitive motion will greatly reduce the number of injuries from the packaging process.
Specific issues the machine addressed were preventing the dry ice from clumping together while in storage, properly dispensing a specified amount, and slowing down the sublimation of the carbon dioxide. The main focus of the project was to design a type of mechanism to keep the dry ice pellets moving and to also keep it in a storage area that will slow down sublimation. An auger will be included in this mechanism to help keep the pellets separated and dispense them. The machine weighs a specific amount of the dry ice to be dispensed into a shipping container full of products. Hopefully, only a minimal amount of dry ice will be used and none will be thrown out or wasted because it has clumped or sublimed before it was used in packaging. This in turn will limit waste from inefficient use of dry ice and also reduce the carbon footprint of product packing in biotech companies. The completed machine will ideally speed up the distribution processes within Life Technologies, Inc. and also limit the number of ergonomic injuries of the workers in the distribution and packaging center. Limiting the repetitive motion will greatly reduce the number of injuries from the packaging process.