THE CHALLENGE

With new company ownership came a fresh desire to grow the Ranpak business by introducing a steady stream of new products into the marketplace. The company began by focusing its efforts on developing a Void Fill Measuring System (VFMS), which would automatically determine how much packing material was needed to fill a void in the top of a box. This would help Ranpak clients reduce material cost, packaging material and labor costs by letting management control the amount of material used for packaging. Ranpak earlier had contracted with a separate company to develop a VFMS, however the undertaking was unsuccessful. The project was revisited because of Ranpak's reemphasis on new product development.

The goal was to have a working prototype developed for introduction at the upcoming PMMI Pack Expo International Show in Chicago. With an inflexible deadline and a working prototype needed in less than five months, the company realized it did not have the resources to develop the new product in house. Ranpak approached MAGNET for assistance.

THE APPROACH

The first step was to establish the fundamental technology to be incorporated in the VFMS. To do this, MAGNET assembled a multi-discipline development team of engineers to thoroughly explore and evaluate several sensing technology and data acquisition concepts, and their effective integration. The group focused on laser technology, which held the greatest potential for meeting the VFMS standards.

The team generated several alternative concepts using the laser technology and performed physical experiments with each concept to evaluate performance. The engineers then developed the data acquisition software appropriate for assessing each concept during the experiments. After selecting the technology and software to be incorporated into the VFMS, the next step was for MAGNET engineers to develop a functional VFMS prototype. The work included software development and electrical and mechanical hardware integration.

Overcoming several obstacles, MAGNET met Ranpak's tight deadline with an extra two days for testing the new system at Ranpak headquarters. The result was a VFMS prototype, the AccuFill, which was fully integrated with Ranpak's FillPak equipment and unveiled with positive response at the packaging trade show in November 2002.

CUSTOMER QUOTE

"We'd love to work with MAGNET again. They met our goals, objectives and most importantly, our timeline."
Mark Dawson - Director of Marketing

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