Hi MiniBrew Friends,
As we mentioned last week, we now started the assembly process of the Off-Tool-Builds (OTB), which joins the design and engineering developments to ensure that each product can be consistently manufactured at scale. All of these individual phases are focusing on optimizing the product for mass production.
One of these phases is the Design for Manufacture (DFM) which we are going to introduce to you in this update.
Design for Manufacture | DFM
One of the most significant parts of the OTB is refining the design of molded and metal parts for high volume production, commonly known as DFM.
Basically, we need to optimize how the engineering and design prototypes fit together (e.g. how to fit the PCBA box with all electronics, as well as hardware parts into the base station of the machine).
Some issues we are currently encountering during the DFM stage.
- One of the trickiest parts was fixing the PCBA box mount. The box was hard to mount into the machine so we fixed this issue by removing the hook and adding additional screws.
- We adapted the routing of the tubes to increase the flow efficiency inside the machine
- We extended the outlet tube of the heater to reduce the assembly time
- We changed the clamps on the tubes to increase its strength
Unfortunately, we cannot share detailed pictures of these processes, but hey... here some other ones from what is happening at our factory.
Our OTB assembly line - now including the hardware and electronics
Sourcing engineer Steven is inspecting various parts
as well as the inspection of the adapted Keg stand :)
the first OTB MiniBrew water test
The first impressions from the system: all parts from the OTB are working together - the MiniBrew works ;)
Although, we did find some leakages on the keg and mash tun connections, our factory partner directly changed the tools to make new parts that should work without leakages. We are going to test it this week.
The mentioned issues are a problem in the current phase, since we are still fine tuning the tooling, the individual parts and the whole assembly line.
Besides, Ko has arrived in China to support Bart with the hardware testing for the OTBs. Soon more information.
New Flavours!
We are happy to introduce you to Niels that joined our brewing department last week! He is himself a passionate hobby brewer and was fascinated by the concept of MiniBrew.
Niels is another food technologist that is happy to help MiniBrew reach new heights by “using and adapting his knowledge to accelerate MiniBrews production and testing processes”.
We are glad to have him on board.
This is it for this weeks update. Thanks again for backing us and we are happy to share our progress with you.
Let us know if you have further questions by dropping us an email to hello@minibrew.io
Cheers & until next time
MiniBrew
P.S. We are still searching for a thirsty Test Engineer - to help us speed up the testing process. So if you know someone that loves beer and fits our job description, please bring us in contact.
