Jewellery manufacturing is a long and arduous task and depends on skillset of workers. Prachet Doshi, Creative Director at Innofy Designs, develops an innovative machine TUBE FORM to overcome the challenges of mass manufacturing in the jewellery sector
Jewellery manufacturing has been considered an art for centuries. In modern times, technology has made it easier for mass production or batch of almost every jewellery item. Despite these advancement, jewellery manufacturing, especially in India, is still a long and arduous task. Mass production of jewellery is not easy as the current technology is mostly dependent on the user’s skills and it is time-consuming and expensive.
To overcome such challenges in jewellery manufacturing, Prachet Doshi, Creative Director at Industrial design and development consultancy Innofy Designs, has designed a one-of-its-kind innovative machine TUBE FORM.
The machine is a semi-automatic tube forming machine which helps to simplify the process of jewellery manufacturing and subsequently increase productivity. In conversation with Machine Maker, Prachet tells us how TUBE FORM can entirely change the process of jewellery manufacturing.
A Need for Change
Prachet is part of the engineering team at Innofy Designs, which is a firm offering research, innovation strategy and industrial designs for their clients.
Based in Satara and Pune, Innofy specializes in consumer, industrial, packaging, and furniture and lifestyle sectors and even perform machine makeovers and redesigning to make a product that can be showcased on the global platform.
Mr Doshi found that the current machines in the market were all skill-driven. With present technology, skilled labourers were required for mass manufacturing. This led to a scarcity of skilled labour in this sector and there was no standardization in the process.
Mr Doshi added, “The biggest challenge was to make the machine user friendly and to automate the process of tube forming with minimum user intervention so that it can be used by unskilled labourers as well.” This would reduce dependence on high-skilled labourers and more people can learn to use the machine to manufacture jewellery.
Apart from this, the current machines are usually function-driven and their form is not suited for the global market. It was also a challenge to make it look attractive while keeping all of its functionality intact.
Innovation in Design and Built
Mr Doshi, with help from the team at Innofy, designed a product with a brand-new aesthetic design and introduced a new design language that makes it look attractive, functional, and makes it stand out in global market. Prachet adds, “TUBE FORM has a revolutionary new design which is specifically aimed at providing long term benefits for the client. The interface is user-friendly with a visually appealing design along with its compact size, all of which are added benefits for the user.”
The curved shape of the machine makes it look futuristic, combined with an interesting colour scheme and exciting graphics which is brand-new for this product segment. The in-built storage facility inside the machine base provides for storing tools and materials which gave faster access during setting and maintenance as well.
Mr Doshi explains, “We adopted the concept of ‘Single tool Fasteners’, where the operator can use a single Allen key to open all the covers and guarding during maintenance and also during setting operation.” This led to a marked increase in ease-of-access and decreased the time it took for maintenance and other operations.
The movement of X and Z slides was automated using servo motors and drive pulleys to standardize the tube forming operation digitally so that even any unskilled and non-experienced user can operate the machine easily. The X and Y coordinates were easily visible to the operator on the screen which helped him reset the machine easily for the same product next time.
Increase in Jewellery Productivity
The new inclined user control panel was designed to be user friendly for an operator of average height and uses the ‘Touch Frequency Principle’, where the buttons frequently used by the operator were placed near him (to the right) while less frequent were placed towards the left.
Mr Doshi explained, “The curvy shape of the machine symbolises the process of jewellery manufacturing. The inclined user control panel set at the correct location proved to be user friendly for the operator of average height and made the work fatigue-free, reducing the stress on the spine while working. This has increased productivity.”
Automation helped in reducing setting time by around 20 percent . Dependency on skilled labour has been reduced as anyone can use the machine easily knowing the X; Y coordinates for a specific product.
With its innovative approach towards jewellery manufacturing, the TUBE FORM is a product that will radically change the current manufacturing sector and will help in boosting productivity while promoting a user-friendly interface and an attractive design.
