Portland, Oregon

Auburn, Washington

Description of Customers Challenge: Boeing is a leading aerospace company and manufacturer of commercial jetliners and military aircraft, as well as a designer and manufacturer of rotorcraft, electronic and defense systems, missiles, satellites, launch vehicles and advanced information and communication systems. Their vast inventory of cutter tools used to manufacture their products, were stored in wooden trays, many purchased in the late 1970’s, some of which have had to be disposed of because of breakage or cracks found due to their age. They had two incidents in the past 6 months where the cutter trays had either snapped in two while being handled or had cracks through the tray. Boeing had also recently changed their storage requirements for the match ground sets and needed new trays that met these requirements.

Solutions Explored: There were many various sizes of these trays so they could only be stacked on the same size tray when being placed in the shipping container to go to Auburn for coating. This made it difficult to utilize the whole container. Handling of these trays was difficult as there were only notches in the side of the trays that allowed for only your finger tips to be used when picking up the trays, making them not very ergonomically friendly. Boeing contacted DACO to research new tote alternatives that met their requirements.

Resolution & Benefits from Solution: After researching what size and style tote would work best for Boeing, it was decided to go with one size tote and that the NSO1215-4 stackable plastic bin would be able to accommodate 95% of all the different match ground cutter sets. By going with one size bin, it would allow better utilization of space for cutters being sent to Auburn for coating. They are designed with ergonomic handles allowing for better gripping while lifting the cutters and stack and lock together securely for safe and stable storage or transport, meeting all of Boeings safety and ergonomic concerns. Because these plastic bins are a standard stock item for the manufacturer, the expense of costly dies was avoided. Boeing plans to start replacing all of the old unsafe trays with the NSO1215-4 plastic bin.