Gorton's seafood is the largest frozen seafood company in America. At Gorton's, I was responsible for increasing productivity of production lines through engineering. More specifically, I designed and implemented 18 design changes and new parts onto multiple production lines. Along with this, I translated safety and training materials from English to Spanish for temporary workers, developed line setups for new production lines, and implemented a localized dust collection system with a budget of $75,000.

The two tubes and funnels in this picture are expensive and fragile, and we needed a way to store and transport them easily. I designed this cart to give technicians an easier time when dealing with these parts.

The cart had to be easy to use and roll to various locations, while protecting the expensive tubes from damage. The tube were also quite heavy, so the cart had to be strong enough to support their weight. With the addition of some supports and by using 1/8” angle iron, the cart was strong enough for this task.

This is the design that I constructed using SolidWorks 2014

Click the image to download high resolution PDF of drawing.

Production workers were finding that there was no ergonomic way to add sauce packets and coupons into boxes. I designed this tray to be placed on top of the conveyor belt that also allows bags of product to flow underneath. The tray needed to be adjustable, so that production workers could change the angle to their preference, and it had to be washdown-ready in case a sauce packet broke on it.

I designed the device in this picture that connects the two conveyors. The goal of this design was simplicity. We wanted to be able to lock and unlock the conveyors to and from one another, quickly and securely, without using any tools.

Floor technicians were complaining that it was difficult to install new rolls of film in this overwrap machine, since they needed to hold the retaining arm up while trying to lift a heavy roll of film. I designed these small blocks, which you can see installed in the next two pictures, in order to hold those arms up while technicians could safely and efficiently replace the rolls of film.

We wanted a simple, semi-permanent solution that could handle everyday use. The horizontal rod was already part of the machine, so I decided to integrate this block onto that rod using a small set screw. This allowed for easy installation and removal if needed, but was strong enough to hold onto the smooth rod without rotating.

This is the pin block in action. The arm being held up is in the way of the technicians when they are replacing film rolls, but the pin block effectively holds the arm out of their way.

Production workers and sanitation teams needed a permanent solution to keep the batter piping horseshoe off of the ground. Originally, it hung from pipes or valves, which was disorganized and raised hygiene concerns. The feet I designed effectively held the batter piping off the ground and offered a durable, inexpensive, and sanitary solution to this problem.

We needed to funnel bulk fish into bulk boxes for storage. When we ran this line to cook fish, but not immediately package it, this chute was critical. It is simple to install and clean, and it effectively funneled fish into the bulk boxes.

The angled section of the vertical chute is the part I designed in this picture. This was needed to collect crumb from an overhead platform during production.

While using certain conveyor configurations, as shown in the photo above, the conveyors would impede with cart placement and wouldn’t allow for proper collection. With the addition of small pins welded to the chute, the angled chute can be removed and rotated without using tools.