PROFESSIONALLY BASED PROJECT - MACHINE MART (ONGOING)

PERMISSION TO SHARE PROJECT REQUESTED AND GRANTED BY COMPANY

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While working as a sales associate for Machine Mart, some of my tasks involved the moving of heavy equipment around the shop floor and also out onto the street for loading into customers vehicles, this procedure proved to be quite risky at times, mainly for moving air compressors, as the pump assemblies mounted onto the top of them substantially raised the centre of mass of the unit, this resulted in the compressor being top heavy and easily rolling over, potentially causing damage to the unit, store stock or injury to personnel. A project was initiated to design a new piece of equipment which would eliminate the risk of moving these bulky items. NOTE: CAD software, such as SolidWorks was not used for this project as only an SDK version was available, as this project was being done for business use this version could not be used. Manual drafting and hand calculations was instead utilised.

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The existing process:

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The current method that was used to move the air compressor units was the use of a sack truck, this was positioned perpendicularly to the side of the air compressor tank with the 'foot' of the sack truck underneath the compressor. As the sack truck was tilted back, the foot of the truck would make contact with the underside of the compressor tank and it could be lifted off of the ground, this proved to be precarious as the compressor could easily rotate around and hit the sack truck, or in a worst case scenario fall off the sack truck completely.

 

The following observations were made upon full understanding and observation of the existing procedure:

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• Lifting the compressor off the ground with the sack truck was precarious and could easily result in the compressor falling off of the truck and getting damaged.

• A lot of effort was required by the operative to lift the compressor onto the sack truck.

• As the compressor was loaded sideways onto the sack truck, manoeuvring through the store or through doorways was difficult, as some compressors could be up to 1.6 meters in length.

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The following objectives were set for this project:

 

• Design a new piece of equipment that would increase safety of this operation within the store.

• Allow for the air compressor units to be moved with less effort spent by the operative.

• Design equipment to a very low budget with limited resources available.

• Design equipment to have the ability to move air compressors of different types and sizes that were held within store.

• Proceed with project without use of computer aided design software.

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Proposed design for mobility equipment:

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Project details to be added soon.