Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/706107
Criteria to make a sound decision on equipment/standards: When evaluating test equipment/standards the following questions should be considered: • What is happening out there? • How is the packaging/product handled? • What type of forces/impacts are products seeing? • How should the data be collected? • Is there an off-the-shelf piece of equipment to duplicate the real world? • Do off-the-shelf test standards capture your environment? • What's the payback of the equipment? • Are there additional benefits to the equipment to justify the purchase? • How do I know the results mimic the real world? • Do I need to test at all or could predictive analysis be used? In order to create a representative simulation, it is necessary to become an expert on the environment in which your product/packaging travels. Once thoroughly understood, special consideration should be given to the machine/specification design. It's not recommended to build or purchase a simulator only to meet normal handling, but rather to maximize the capability, so products/packaging can be evaluated at extreme conditions as well; this will allow further utilization of the equipment to root cause. Packaging engineers need this capability to robustness test products/packaging and determine where and how failure occurs. The following case studies provide examples of where off-the-shelf equipment and standards did not exist. A thorough understanding of the environment led to simulator development producing usable/realistic results. These concepts can be utilized across a multitude of industries. Case study 1: Handling--Basiloid: Most off-the-shelf equipment focuses only on over the road and physical handling of packages and omits internal handling; which is part of the distribution environment and needs to be considered. Engineers spend much time on the development of new packaging or the redesign of existing pack. Once the validation process begins, the need exists to ensure a realistic/repeatable test exists to qualify and establish a baseline in a timely manner. Since varying drivers could not reproduce failures consistently, a need for a simulator arose; waiting on drivers to conduct the test was not an option either. Understanding variance between drivers, trucks, and paths is critical; several trucks were instrumented to collect data in order to capture this variance. Results suggested a need for the simulator to lift product, tilt product and reproduce a vibration profile found in our environment that included driving over dock plates. The data showed the need for three profiles based on product weight—heavy, medium, and light. A simulator was developed and implemented as a part of daily testing procedures. The equipment was qualified comparing real failures from the field to real failures in the lab. 20 ista views • July 2016 • www.ista.org Simulation Testing to Replicate Packaging and Product Damage in the Field > CONTINUED FROM FRONT COVER > MORE ON PAGE 22