The Problem

A new product carton was too stiff and long to open by hand for packing. Production was stuck as they escalated to R&D. We weren’t anticipating this task but the line needed to move. I met up with 5 senior engineers and tooling specialists tasked with solving the issue early in the morning, no solution, just complaints on the carton being the problem.

The Why & How

I looked at the carton and understood where force needed to be applied to open it cleanly. No drawings, no formal process - I pictured the geometry, understood and found the leverage required, and used spare 80/20 components leftover from previous projects.

I built a working fixture roughly an hour before lunch, and showed it off when everyone got back. A fully engineered machine built from new parts would have cost $5K-$10K and taken up to a week to fully spec and build. This cost $500 in parts we already had on hand, took fewer than 8 hours total, including reliability tweaks for production use.

The Output

Production took the prototype directly. It’s still running on the floor today. The plant made it sturdier over time but never changed fundamentally. What took two to three individuals to open the carton, now a one person task. The prototype worked to not only prove the mechanism, but used directly for production.