Modular Bread Dispensing Chute for Hygienic Cleaning and Locking
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing dispensing devices for unpackaged baked goods face challenges in ensuring easy and hygienic removal, maintenance, and cleaning, particularly requiring designs that prevent goods from being returned and ensure effective spit and sneeze protection, while being accessible to both experienced and inexperienced personnel.
Innovation Solution
A dispensing device with a modular front removal assembly featuring a fastening structure, collecting channel, and fixing element, where the fixing element can change positions to lock or release the collecting channel, allowing for easy disassembly and cleaning, and incorporating a transparent collecting channel and front pane for enhanced hygiene and attractiveness.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If the removal assembly is designed with fixed components to ensure stability and hygiene, then cleaning and maintenance become difficult, but if it is designed with detachable components for easy cleaning, then structural stability and reliability are compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The removal assembly is divided into separate components: the collecting channel (22) can be detached from the fastening structure (18). This segmentation allows the collecting channel to be removed for cleaning while the fastening structure remains in place, resolving the contradiction between ease of cleaning and structural stability.
Solution Approach 2:
The fixing element (36) provides dynamic fastening - it secures the collecting channel during operation to maintain structural stability, but can be activated to release the collecting channel for cleaning. This dynamic capability allows the system to switch between stable operation and easy maintenance states.
2Ease of repair
If specialized assembly personnel are required for maintenance, then repair reliability is improved, but maintenance complexity and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The removal assembly is designed to be self-serviceable by store staff without requiring specialized assembly personnel. The fixing element (36) can be activated by simple action to release the collecting channel (22), enabling easy removal and cleaning by non-experts, thus improving ease of repair while managing device complexity.
3Reliability
If the collecting channel is tightly fixed to prevent movement, then structural stability is improved, but ease of removal for cleaning is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The fixing element (36) provides dynamic fastening that adapts to different operational states. During normal operation, it tightly secures the collecting channel (22) to the fastening structure (18) for stability. When cleaning is needed, the fixing element can be activated to release the collecting channel, enabling easy removal without compromising fixing reliability during use.
Solution Approach 2:
The collecting channel (22) is designed to be extractable from the fastening structure (18) when needed. The fixing element (36) enables this extraction by releasing the collecting channel from its fixed position, allowing it to be removed for cleaning while maintaining tight fixation during operation.
Data Source
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AI summary
The present invention relates to a dispensing device (10) for unpackaged goods (B), in particular baked goods such as bread, rolls or the like, with at least one front-side removal assembly (14) for forming at least one goods removal opening (16), the removal assembly (14) having at least one Fastening structure (18), at least one collecting channel (22) and at least one fixing element (36) for fixing the collecting channel (22) in the fastening structure (18), the fastening structure (18) having a fastening receptacle (34) for inserting at least a section of the collecting channel (22) and wherein the fixing element (36) can be transferred from a first position (S1), in which the collecting channel (22) is fixed, into a second position (S2), in which the collecting channel (22) is released and vice versa.