Hello Everyone!

My teammates and I spent the past couple weeks building our first crate. It was an exciting endeavor that taught me a variety of new skills and reminded me that projects always take longer than expected. We opted to receive pre-cut wood from the TA’s, and dove straight to discussing how we wanted to build the crate. We decided to start off by using a router to round the edges of the planks. Initially, I had difficulty using the router causing chips to form at the corners of my planks; my teammate Kyler determined that I was passing the pieces too quickly through the router. I adjusted my speed and had no further issues routing the remaining planks.

Simultaneously Josefina was designing the crate handles, which she then proceeded to cut out of two 6in planks using the jigsaw. This was a labor-intensive process, but she did a great job making lovely and ergonomic handles. Once the planks had been routed, we moved on to sanding. We decided to use the orbital sanders and a series of 60, 120, and 240 grit sand-paper. We were cognizant to also sand the edges and corners to remove all imperfections and get a smooth finish throughout the planks.

Next we proceeded to construct the crate, starting off by measuring the planks and marking where we wanted the screws to be located.

To make the frames we set up corner clamps, secured in place using table clamps, to align and secure the pieces while drilling them. To make the pilot holes we used a 1/8” drill bit. Then we used a larger drill bit marked to a desired depth to create the countersink so that the screws could sit flush with the wood. However, while counter sinking, we found that the wood would splinter off in chunks. We weren’t able to resolve this while putting the crate together but looking back we could have potentially mitigated this by decreasing the speed of the drill. Despite the splintering we didn’t have any issues drilling the screws in place.

The frame I made did not sit level on the table. We figured out this was due to one of 6 in planks being bowed and causing the frame to deform. To fix this issue we used the miter saw to cut a new 6in plank from an extra finished 9in plank we had. We made sure to round off the edges of this new piece before using it to replace the bowed piece in the frame. Next, we constructed the base of the crate by securing one of the frames to three 9in planks of wood, which compose the base of the crate, using screws following the same method used before. Afterwards, we attached four 2×2 pieces to each of the corners of the base. To assure that all the frames were evenly positioned, we used a 1×4 plank as a spacer between the frames while securing the last two in place.

After the crate had been put together, we used a mixture of wood glue and wood dust to fill any holes that were made while counter sinking. Once the filling was dry we sanded it down using 60, 120 and 240 grit sand-paper. To finish off the crate we decided to treat it with wood wax as it gave the desired look while maintaining the smooth finish achieved through sanding. All remaining dust was removed from the crate before the initial coat of wood wax was applied. We waited the indicated 20 minutes before wiping off any excess wax and then decided to apply a second coat. After another 20 minutes Josefina wiped off any remaining excess wax and placed the piece in the designated rack to dry overnight.

Our crate is in the upper left corner.

The next day we came in to check on the crate and attached our name plates using wood glue.

Image above is of our final cleaned workspace.

Cost Analysis:

Cost Type	Cost	Price	Source	Quantity	Total
Materials	1×4 Board	$2.98/8ft	Lowes	16.88ft	$6.29
	Screws	$9.98/184screw	Howe Depot	48 screws	$2.60
	Sand Paper	$19.59/100sheet	Home Depot	6 sheet	$1.2
Labor	Woodworking Operator	$20/hr	Ziprecruiter	0.75 hrs	$15
	Prototyping Engineer (You!)	$36/hr	Ziprecruiter	6hrs	$216
Overhead	Facility Cost (Machine Time)	$60/day	Tear Cap Workshop	6hrs	$45
	Quality Control	$32/hr	Ziprecruiter	0.09hrs	$2.88
Design	Engineering and Development	$46/hr	Ziprecruiter	0.5hrs	$22.5
	Iterations	$46/hr	Ziprecruiter	0.5hrs	$22.5
Misc.	Waste and Scrap	20%	MDPI		$2.02

The cost of building the crate for this homework was evaluated to be $320.99. This is mostly due to prototyping labor costs, which took an extensive amount of time at a high hourly rate. However, if this expense along with those of engineering and development and iteration are omitted from the analysis the cost is reduced to $34.61. This new evaluation was established based on the production time of a crate and hourly rate of a skilled woodworker, which were determined to be 45 minutes and $20 respectively. The QC cost was assumed to only take a couple minutes to complete for a highly skilled woodworker.

The production cost could be mitigated by buying materials wholesale or potentially adjusting the crate design so that the manufacturing time could be reduced. However, despite there being cheaper options in the market, such as Joann’s $10 wooden crate, I believe that the one we designed and built in class is of much higher quality; this can easily be seen in the quality of wood and finishes of our crate. Cost reduction is an important part of manufacturing, but it is not always in the best interest of the costumer if it compromises quality. This is especially true when talking about manufacturing medical devices which have a critical impact on people’s health.