5. Small Items Organizer Under the Serious Resource Constraints¶
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“資源制約下のものづくり”, note
Background¶
When I stationed at a new FabLab in Bhutan, inventory management used to be a big issue. If it was the first FabLab founded in the country or the FabLabs founded with the generous support from the Fab Foundation, stockers to keep small items were included in the donation list and they received good-looking plastic stockers made in foreign countries. But in our case, the FabLab I was working for was not the first FabLab and had nothing to do with the Fab Foundation.
If you are facing serious resource constraints, you have to find your own way even to organize the stock inventory of a variety of nuts and volts, threads, washers and electronics. If there is no big plastic stocker available in the local market, you may wish to satisfy yourself with small stockers and their sizes are different from one product to another. That was my first reaction. But as we further enhanced our stock inventory, I realized such patchworking solution would make visitors think that our inventory management might not be well-oranized. I left the country before this became critical.
When I looked back at my experience with that lab, I wondered if there could be more fundamental solutions from the beginning. If no big stocker was available in the local market, why not making it ourselves of local materials? In many developing countries, plywood boards are still available even if they don’t have such wide variety of items in terms of quality, thickness and size standards.
Design¶
Therefore, I decided to make one stocker with the locally available wood boards. Why now? It was because I planned to make another machine that needed a variety of threads, nuts and volts, washers, limit switches, solenoids etc. As soon as I started receiving those delivery, I faced a shortage of stocker to keep those items.
(1) Drawers¶
I designed the drawer based on the ready-made plastic stocker I already had. For the SVG files for the basic drawer with 4 x 4 compartments was automatically generated with the help of MakerCase. Downloaded SVG file was imported to Adobe Illustrator and the placement of the components was rearranged so that they could fit to the plywood board. I added an elipse on the front wall so that I could hook my forefinger to pull the drawer out of the box.
Based on the basic design with 4 x 4 compartments, I prepared four design patterns: 4 x 4, 2 x 2, and two intermediates.
Then I went to study the local materials available in the local hardware shops. After a few survey, I decided to use the Falcata Ply (2.5mm). It’s sold by 910mm x 1820mm. I asked the shopkeeper to cut it to eight 455mm x 455mm boards. From one piece of 455mm x 455mm board, I could cut out components for two drawers. Therefore, from one Falcata ply board, you could make maximum 16 drawers. However, considering the test cut and cut failure, I set the target number as 14 drawers.
Machine used: Trotec Speedy300/400
(2) Container¶
After making 14 drawers, I piled 7 of them to measure the height and placed two piles side-by-side to measure the width of the container. Based on the measurement, I designed the container with MakerCase once again. You must not forget that the height and width of one compartment for the drawer should be a little larger than the size of the drawer itself. With my parameter setting, MakerCase platform automatically generated the design and I could download the SVG file for all the components.
Again, with Adobe Illustrator, I placed the components onto artboards of 910mm x 450mm. With this, I learned that I would need three pieces of plywood.
Again I went to the local hardware shop and, after a few survey, I decided to use MDF Board (4mm). It’s sold by 910mm x 450mm in the local hardware shop. I purchased three pieces.
Machine used: Trotec Speedy400
Hero Photos¶
