Explore high-paying careers in clean, high-tech Connecticut manufacturing.

Name of NGM Educator:

John Hoyle, Howell Cheney Technical High School

Name of Host Company:

Baldwin Pegolas Furniture

Grade Level:

10-11th grade

Student Work Types:

• hands-on projects

Task Abstract:

Maximilian Baldwin is the founder and owner of Baldwin Furniture and Baldwin Pergolas in Middletown, Ct. His company has been built on a high level of product quality and service which has resulted in strong customer loyalty and product recognition. Baldwin Pergolas has experienced rapid growth at an astounding annual rate of 10% per year. This has resulted in a wide variety of manufacturing processes which have grown without documentation.

Nearly all Baldwin Pergolas are custom built. Like the manufacturing processes, product definition has outpaced documentation. As a result, each pergola requires massive amounts of design work and consultations with customers. A lack of documentation also results in the need for oversight of shop activities for each and every product and item.

Given the nature of the product, Max and I deemed it an ideal opportunity to create modularity of components. Lean Manufacturing with its inherent element of product modularity is a key area in industry today. Getting experience in implementing a modular design process at Baldwin presented outstanding possibilities for lessons for our students at Cheney Tech. We ultimately created a full design process involving modular parts for Baldwin Pergolas. The entire design process has been fully streamlined and components standardized. The results have been astounding.

Task Objectives:

Students will learn about Lean Manufacturing modularity terms and explain benefits of modularity of design.

Esssential Understandings/Questions:

• Look at the product. what is the smallest design element?
• Does using design modules save fabrication costs? How?
• What is the smallest module?
• Which elements can be considered design modules?

Task Description:

Exercises: Take-Home - Find an assembled product that appears to have been designed using modular principles or components. Try to identify which items can be used across various models or version of the product. Identify those modular items which appear to be subassemblies. (Some items to consider: washers and dryer sets (are the switches, buttons, or timers similar? Do you think they are created as separate assemblies then attached to the product? Why?; ( computers: most students in our program have built their own or worked on them; Which items in your computer would you consider sub-assemblies? Which items appear to be modular? Why?) Explain your reasons.

Activities:

Activity 1:
Students will design a Cube-puzzle - they will create their own design, build the puzzle, and fully document it. Once designed, students will be required to change the basic cube-size and will see the ease of changes due to the inherent modular design based on cubes.

Activity 2:
Students will be given Lego building blocks and create a holder for a water bottle. They will fully document the product, then the bottle size will be changed and they will modify the existing design. They will see the ease of changes due to modularity+ .

Activity 3:
Connecticut's Modular (and Lean) Manufacturers: Students will use the internet to find a Connecticut company and product which they believe utilized Lean Manufacturing and its modularity of design component. They will write a 2-page report, including graphic pictures of the product explaining the product's use, likely customers, and product areas they believe are modular.

Related Lessons: Parametric Design - Students will have ongoing lessons using Autocad Inventor creating parametric designs. Students will create assemblies which have components that are dimensionally driven by other items in the product.

Related Lessons: Purchasing - Students will be given a product and asked to create a purchased products list of the items. Discussion will focus on why a modular product line would have an easier job of purchasing as compared to a non-modular one.

Resources Required:

• Internet
• Assembled products
• Legos

Prior Learning Required:

• Autocad Inventor creating parametric designs
• Cadkey
• Mechanical Desktop

Educator's Comments: