3Pack WestRock Challenge 1

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3Pack WestRock Challenge 1

School:Virginia Tech
Team:Adnan Ahmed, Garrett Hornauer, Jiyu Niu

3Pack
8HR Repack
Design Rationale

We have chosen to participate in WestRock’s Challenge 1: Club Store Redesign. The task given to us was to redesign a club store package to enable a secondary function with sustainability in mind. The whole project can be summarized into preliminary design, prototype building, and finalization of the package.

The preliminary design was the crux of our project in that we had to narrow down a feasible design that is made out of mostly corrugated material, benefits or entertains the customer, and encourages recurring purchases while fostering brand loyalty. Our initial ideas were a cut-out monopoly game board on the backside of a corrugated box tailored to children and teenagers, and an instruction-set for an action figure (made out of corrugated material) tailored to young children.

The challenges that arose from those two ideas were that the action figure cut-out would bulge out which would create an awkward stacking pattern during distribution. Likewise, the monopoly game board’s challenges would be licensing, massive board area, and procurement of the small pieces. We needed something that is easy to procure and original to foster brand loyalty and lead to recurring purchasers. Over many iterations, our scope finally evolved into a Corona ® Light beer corrugated box with cut-outs that can be assembled into a beer bottle. We believe this design hits all of the aforementioned categories.

The prototype building was the next stage and since we have the scope narrowed down, we can go ahead and cut it out on the Esko cutting table. However, once assembling the bottle we noticed it was too thin since we used E-flute to save material. We solved the issue by changing it to C-flute which is a common size. Afterwards, we used Slicer to display a 3D model of the cut-out corrugate bottle to make sure the dimensions were in specification.

Our pilot design has the corrugate bottle proportioned, graphics aligned, and smooth pack-out factored in. The numbers on the corrugate pieces provide easy assembly of the bottle, and the center holes allow the bottle to be positioned correctly. We believe this secondary function will be great at parties, school functions, and chill evenings.

Over several revisions, we can ensure the secondary function of the package fosters brand loyalty and encourages recurring purchases, benefits the customers by entertaining them, and is made out of predominantly corrugated material to limit carbon footprint.

Design Rationale Document