Kitchen Cart Design and Fabrication For DoD Use

The kitchen cart is a field kitchen made usually for military services. The doors open, come off, and attach to the sides to double the counter space. It includes a prep area, a cooking area, a sink, and a service area. The cart contains a microwave, a refrigerator, and a little drawer system. There is a propane hookup on the inside.

Overview

Client: Department of Defense
Industry: U.S. Military Services
Part: Doors, Hinges, Body, Wheels, Assembly of Structure

Challenges

The design came from an outside vendor, so we needed to take what they wanted and create and completely redesign it.
We needed to find a way to reduce expensive weld time.
No adjustability to the old design because it was all welded together. The cart only worked as one size.
Different manufacturing paradigms and the costing analysis proved difficult, with multiple stakeholders adding input to the project.
The original drawings lacked a lot of information on assembly and the few pictures we had to go off were printed out in black and white. It was extremely difficult to determined where certain parts go and or how they were welded in place.

Solutions

We re-created the design so that it was bigger and more customizable.
We utilized riveting rather than welding to put the cart together.
The parts were adjustable for end users in case they needed to update their cart in the future.
The laser cutter makes precision cuts to sheet metal that will act as the body for the Kitchen Cart.
The breaks bend the metal into the appropriate shape to prepare them for the riveting process.
Surface finishing is used to full effect here, allowing for a professional and clean look that will look great in any portable kitchen setting.
We had to go back and forth with the engineers to clean up and the drawings and add information to help the fabricators.
We also took pictures of each step to create a build book. This will ensure proper assembly of the next kitchen cart on top of limiting any confusion on the whole build process.

Results

The ability to make configurable products for end users that adjust to changing needs and conditions.
Allowed us to create a design based on the preliminary work of a vendor. We turn ideas into reality.