How Plaato Used 3D Printing at Their Contract Manufacturer to Expedite DFM

1. Introduction
2. How to Empower Brewers With Data?
3. Developing and Testing a Resilient Product for Kegs
4. Design for Manufacturing by 3D Printing
5. Iterations at Home and in China
6. From a Successful Launch to New Applications

Plaato’s name might sound familiar to readers of our Blog; last year we shared their story about the development of a smart airlock for homebrewers that measures CO2 released during fermentation.

Since then, Michael Kononsky and his team has continued on their quest to empower brewers with data and launched a new product, Plaato Keg, a smart scale for monitoring beer kegs.

While the airlock required complex, optically clear parts, the development of their latest product brought about a host of new challenges. "We needed a waterproof device that will withstand a keg, which can be anywhere from 20 to 60 kilograms when they're full,” said Kononsky.

Read on to learn how Plaato’s team created more than 100 prototypes for beta testers worldwide and 3D printed new iterations both at their office and at their contract manufacturer to finalize the design for manufacturing (DFM) of their new product, which has already won two of the prestigious Red Dot Awards.

“We had a chat with one of our retailers, just fooling around a bit with some ideas and we said, ‘Okay, what about knowing how much you drink, knowing how much you have in your inventory. ‘Cause a lot of people have many different kegs and a kegerator, which is like a fridge for kegs. They have it in the basement, they don't know how much they have left or how old it is. So we made a couple of prototypes and our retailers loved it. They said they want to support that,” said Kononsky