This is Brabant Water
Brabant Water supplies drinking water of the highest quality to Brabant’s 2.4 million inhabitants. To ensure continuity of supply, the mains network must be maintained and sometimes replaced. During this work, customers may be temporarily without water. To alleviate this inconvenience, Brabant Water has developed a contemporary tapping point that focuses on the customer and the provision of information. By placing the tapping point during works, Brabant Water gives customers the opportunity to obtain drinking water to alleviate the inconvenience.
The tapping point is also used at events and festivals where sustainability and/or sports play a clear role. In this way, Brabant Water encourages drinking tap water.
The housing of the tap point is made of plastic and the “base” of steel. There are also a number of accessories such as a standpipe for connection to the mains and taps for filling bottles and/or buckets.
Packing problem
Brabant Water wants to package these products in a solid way so that no damage can occur during transport and storage. That’s why they approached Faes to help think of a packaging solution that meets the following preconditions:
- Water resistant;
- Weight must comply with the ARBO
- Easily movable (wheels/fork truck)
- Repairs must be able to be carried out
- Aluminum plates inside for work instruction (sticker)
- Ventilation options to prevent mold growth
Packaging Solution
Brabant Water approached Faes for this project. After a thorough intake meeting in which the aforementioned preconditions were discussed, Faes started working on a number of solutions that are briefly discussed below.
Footplate
Because the footplate is enormously heavy and large, Faes made a custom flightcase for it. In particular, the size of the footplate meant that no standard packaging was actually applicable.
The flight case is equipped with wheels and a pull handle to make the package mobile. Of course, there are sufficient handles all around to ensure that this flight case can be lifted with at least two people. To guarantee watertightness, closing profiles with a rubber seal have been used and the inside of the flight case has been made completely waterproof by applying a polyester layer. In addition, grids have been applied for ventilation, because the product is always packed moist after use.
The interior consists of plastic adaptor parts made of POM material, in which the footplate can be placed in two ways. Whichever side of the box you place the footplate in, it will always fit!
Standpipe with accessories
For the standpipe, associated hoses and valves and other accessories, we have found a perfect solution in our SKB offering, namely the SKB 3R-3214-15B-E. This crate already has built-in wheels and a pull-out handle as standard. Furthermore, the SKB 3R case is waterproof as standard, so we made an efficiency improvement there right away. Again, for the interior, we manufactured plastic adaptor parts from POM material. The taps are attached to the inside of the side wall of the crate by tool clamps. The hoses can remain attached to the taps and be placed around the standpipe in the box, as it were. For small loose parts, a separate assortment case is provided in this crate.
Housing
The plastic housing was the biggest challenge. In fact, this housing was already in a very sturdy thick nylon bag which in itself provided sufficient protection. Only transportation was a crime. Faes made a custom flight case container for this (so to speak, only a bottom section). In this container we placed a foam buffer in each corner, allowing the housing to be “planted” in the container like a “tree”. This makes it stand firmly in the bin.
The inside of this bin is also polyester coated as described above and the foam parts are waterproofed.
General
When designing these packages, we took into account the dimensions of Brabant Water buses and the standard fittings in them. The entire set can be transported in the aisle of the buses.