Good Citizens used 3D Scanning and 3D Analysis to help with his manufacturing problem
It’s no secret that Good Citizens owner, Nik Robinson and his sons, have had problems with manufacturing their 100% recycled plastic eyewear frames. They’ve spoken about it extensively in media interviews. Over 752 days and 2500 attempts later you’d think they have it all sorted and they did – research was complete, trials made, tooling complete and production had been running for three years. Then the unthinkable happened. The family pressed go on production for the profitable summer season ahead of them – but there was a problem, just another problem. One of their main tools broke due a mistake in setting up the machine.
The Good Citizens Eyewear story started in 2018 when Nik’s two young boys were upset with all the plastic waste in the world. The vision was to turn the plastic of one single-use bottle into a pair of 100% recycled, ethically made sunglasses frames in Sydney.
The key was 100% recycled, not 50% or even 90% as that would be cheating. Manufacturing with recycled plastic, and particularly 100% rPET, is not straight forward. There are many predictable factors that need to be accounted for plus a host of unforeseen factors that show up on every production run.
Challenge
Nik and the team needed to make a new tool. It should be a simple task – replace the broken tool like for like. They’d made it once, so they just needed to make it again. Not so simple. Along the way, they had made multiple tweaks to the tool on the fly to make production easier but didn’t have detailed, precise records of those changes, so couldn’t supply an accurate CAD to the toolmaker. They needed to work backwards by scanning the existing physical frame parts.
Nik had been on the hunt to find the answers to his problem. The grapevine led him to Wysiwyg 3D, not once but three times: a toolmaker, a London colleague and a designer in Sydney. Not one to ignore three recommendations, Nik called the team from Wysiwyg 3D, a specialist 3D scanning service provider, who could hopefully help him solve the problem.
Solution
Shane Rolton, Managing Director of Wysiwyg 3D, loves a challenge and this project had his name written all over it. The secret weapon of choice was 3D laser scanning – this technology may seem from the future but in fact has been around since last century. Shane first came across 3D scanning as an engineer at Hawker de Havilland whilst making planes for Boeing and has been scanning now for 25 years.
With an arsenal of eight scanning technologies to choose from, Shane selected the Kreon Arm and laser attachment as it has an accuracy of 30 microns and is perfect to capture the detail and size of the glasses. After 3D scanning the arm of the glasses, the pointcloud data was processed ready for analysis. The scanner had picked up details that were naked to the eye but would later inform design and manufacturing decisions.
Rolton explains, “The beauty of 3D scanning is that with the right tools, it can be used to digitise small or large items and can be used during each stage of the manufacturing lifecycle. During the design and prototyping phase, it helps to identify design flaws early. Throughout production, it is used to create precise digital models of tools and moulds, ensuring they meet exact specifications. And finally quality control – for comparing the manufactured parts to the original design specifications. This ensures that the final products meet the required standards and tolerances.”
Robinson comments, “By using Wysiwyg 3D’s technology and expertise, I’ve learned things I didn’t know about my own product that will now inform design and manufacturing. It’s saved me my sanity, money and time. I wish I’d known about these wonderful people earlier in our journey.
“We make these glasses out of one plastic bottle and there are five modular pieces. Recycled plastic behaves differently to virgin plastic. It shrinks at different rates and this has made production an absolute nightmare. We’ve failed over 2500 times because we’ve been second guessing ourselves. Had I known about these guys five years ago, we could have navigated these challenges with foresight not hindsight and that’s gold for anyone in our position.”
Results
Nik and his team are working with Wysiwyg 3D to scan all their frame parts to develop accurate CADs for their current Good Citizens tools to make future toolmaking and production a much smoother process and perhaps slow the growth of grey hair!
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