What’s In The Bag? … Act II Of “Reptiles Are In!”

Background

Products that require ultra-clean environments pose difficult challenges in the way businesses manufacture and prepare food, pharmaceuticals and other products.

In response, innovative new thinking and computing advancements are leading to exciting products that address such challenges.

To help reduce contamination, some of the largest companies in food service and preparation invited Spellbound to develop a new hand tool.

We created a simple yet groundbreaking tool that was safe and easy to use. Most importantly, it decreased the potential for cross-contamination, as our mission required. The tool is the Viper® Bag & Pouch Opener.

Part II Challenge

Since we introduced the Viper®, the need for more stringent control over the packaging of raw materials has grown significantly. To minimize potential contamination of highly sensitive products, more rugged bags, packaging, and product containers are now being used by diverse industries ranging from food to pharmaceuticals. This effort prompted a number of large food service and manufacturing organizations to ask Spellbound to develop a hand tool that could cut through such heavier, tougher materials safely, while minimizing cross-contamination hazards.

Mission

Design and develop a tool that can safely cut through multiple layers and varying types of polymer, foil and paper materials and be robust enough to cut shrink-wrap and strapping used to package raw materials. In addition to minimizing laceration injuries, the tool should also minimize cross contamination hazards.

Solution

After researching the industry’s current challenges, we determined that the Viper still covered most of the original mission. The only missing feature missing now was a multi-purpose function that could cut the new, heavier-duty packaging.

Through rigorous prototyping, testing and fine-tuning, Spellbound ultimately arrived at a product that met both mission and industry goals: the Viper PRO.

The Viper PRO tool features three cutting surfaces: a central cutting-edge in front to open bags and slice materials; plus two piercing arms with extra blade channels on either side of the body to open knotted bags, straps, boxes, and multi-layer materials.

Additional features include NSF (National Sanitation Foundation) certification; FDA-compliant, high-strength materials; and specially formulated stainless-steel blades to minimize corrosion, chipping, and breaking.

Results

The Viper PRO tool eliminates the need for scissors, utility knives, and other unsafe workplace tools. Given the staggering costs associated with batch contamination and laceration injuries, the prevention of just one incident is enough to warrant the addition of Viper PRO to most manufacturing operations.