
The guy who made it so difficult to open your bag of potato chips  - jmjerlecki
http://www.rheothing.com/2012/05/im-that-guy.html
======
georgemcbay
The guy we really need to find and punish is the one who invented "rigid
plastic clamshells".

The kind that "conveniently" transforms from product packaging into a razor-
sharp weapon while you are trying to open it.

~~~
AncientPC
Clamshell packaging was made for retail shelves. To prevent shrinkage and
increase product visibility, it was designed to be transparent while
simultaneously difficult to open.

The explosion of Amazon and other online retailers made the advantages of
clamshell packaging moot. However if you are a manufacturer, it may not be
economically feasible to produce two different types of packaging for
different retailers so lowest common denominator wins out.

Amazon has tried to combat clamshell packaging[1] with a few manufacturers
(Fisher-Price, Mattel, Microsoft), but it has yet to be adopted by the rest of
the manufacturing industry.

[1]: [http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/amazoncom-cuts-
pack...](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/03/amazoncom-cuts-packaging-to-
combat-wrap-rage/)

~~~
rdtsc
> To prevent shrinkage and increase product visibility,

Which is also a feature to discourage shoplifting.

~~~
derleth
Out of curiosity, what did you think 'shrinkage' meant in that context?

~~~
rdtsc
Wow yeah I was really confused. English is my third language and I can often
figure words that I don't know from the context except that in this case I
interpreted 'shrinkage' as some kind of a tendency do produce smaller products
(electronics get smaller for instance). And I thought ok it seems a large
package makes the product more visible on the shelves. Then I thought "ok"
actually a large package would be hard to sneak under one's shirt. So it would
be good for that as well.

~~~
fuzzix
"English is my third language"

I don't think that's the problem - I had no idea what shrinkage is and:

\- English is my first language

\- I've worked in retail (though I rarely paid attention back then)

------
TamDenholm
I love learning about things I would never come across in everyday life, like
how a packing machine works and the problems no one would ever think to think
of like air pressure and altitudes. Then also the restrictions put in place
and how to come up with a creative solution to a problem. This is the kind of
stuff I live for.

~~~
ahelwer
The air pressure certainly has an effect. I live in an only somewhat-high-
altitude city (Calgary) and most of the chip bags you see are puffed up like
balloons.

~~~
graywh
Once had a bag of chips burst while driving up into the Rockies.

------
mcpherrinm
I think the most interesting part of this post was the comment about how they
use multiple scales with chips to get closest to the desired value.

This is really a neat hack that probably allows for much less precise chip
dumpers. I'm reminded of how awesome randomized algorithms in CS can seem, but
in real life it is just extra magical.

~~~
excuse-me
More a case of discrete chip mass.

You could have very accurate chip scales, load cells are cheap and very
accurate - but how do you select exact 'N' grams of random sized potato chips?

Having a set of pans, where the first has eg. 17chips with a mass of 4.5g, the
next has 19chips with a mass of 5.9g etc and then selecting from 4 of them
them to hit the 20g bag size is very clever.

~~~
hammock
Exactly. It allows for less-precise (i.e. more variability) _chip size_ , not
chip scales. :)

Simplifying the scenario might clarify what's happening. Imagine any given
chip could weigh 1-2oz. And you are trying to fill a 2oz (minimum guaranteed
content) bag. You already have 1 chip in the bag, weighing 1oz. The next chip
you add (think "marginal" from econ class) weighs anywhere from 1-2oz and
could tip the scale all the way up to 3oz, when you are only looking for 2oz
in the bag. But if you use two scales, you have now a choice of TWO chips to
put in the bag, so you pick the one that weighs closest to 1oz. And ultimately
this allows you to fill more 2oz bags with the same quantity of chips.

------
ChuckMcM
At 4:10 in this video <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkqBbr7Ewsw> you can
see a VFFS machine in action.

(I find 'how its made' to be musak for nerds but that is a different post :-)

~~~
sciurus
You can link directly to 4:10 in the video.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkqBbr7Ewsw&t=4m10s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkqBbr7Ewsw&t=4m10s)

~~~
bmelton
Holy shit that's brilliant.

I admittedly haven't been to Youtube in forever, but that actually got me to
click, if only to find out how (other than altering the querystring by hand)
you did it.

I still didn't see how to do it though. Is that a logged-in option perhaps or
am I just missing something?

~~~
X-Istence
When you are at the time you want, right click on the video, and copy the link
with the time.

"Copy video URL at current time"

That's all there is too it :-)

~~~
nsns
Or add &t=XmYs to the URL (where X is minutes and Y is seconds).

~~~
X-Istence
> "(other than altering the querystring by hand"

Parent I was replying to already knew that part...

------
biot
I find this article to be quite frustrating. It's like reading about how some
process was too slow, so they looked at the variables which include a faster
processor, more RAM, and larger storage. Ultimately, they chose more RAM and
developed a new algorithm and all was solved. But then they never tell you
what the algorithm is. Or why it allowed them to keep within the constraints
of the same processor and storage.

In this case, it's a new adhesive. But how was that developed? What makes the
new adhesive better suited to high-pressure applications while keeping the
temperature and time constant? Inquiring geeks want to know!

------
hammock
OK now let's find the guy that invented those crinkly Sun Chips bags.

~~~
K2h
agreed - and then lets ask them about the total fabrication that they are
biodegradable.

~~~
Jimmie
Biodegradable... eventually.

edit: So I looked it up and it should only take 14 weeks in an active compost
pile. I wonder if anyone has ever tested it?

~~~
dbarlett
Almost no change after 25 weeks in a home compost pile:
<http://cockeyed.com/science/compost_chips/sunchips.php>

~~~
Jimmie
Interesting. I'm skeptical of the marketing because 14 weeks doesn't seem like
long enough. I'm also skeptical of this experiment though.

Sunchips specifies 14 weeks in a hot and active compost. A new compost pile
(like in the experiment) would not be very active compared to an old one,
especially since he didn't add any worms to it but he did get the water and
turning right. He also mentions that it was cold and rainy in the weeks after
he started his compost. An old compost would shrug this off but it would have
a negative effect on a newly started compost.

~~~
wizard_2
A friend of mine teaches gardening to children and they tried it. After 4
months the bag was a bit thinner and worn but not drastically different. They
figured that in a large communal compost it might only take 14 weeks to
biodegrade as communal composts are considerably hotter then anything you
could have at home.

------
leot
Seems like a good design would be to have seals that are extra-weak to shear
forces while being strong for all the other kinds.

~~~
scott_w
One type of seal I see has a nick in the side.

It's still sealed, but the nick gives you something to leverage, so you can
tear the packet open. Perhaps this isn't as common in the US?

~~~
reneherse
The nick you're describing creates what structural engineers call a 'stress
riser' in the material of the bag. It focuses the force you exert on the bag
to a small point, from which the tear will originate.

Stress risers are a common cause of structural failure, and are usually
designed around. Some well known examples where they cause failures:
rectangular window openings in aluminum fuselages, knots in fishing line, a
poorly designed head tube lug on a steel bicycle frame.

In this case, however, the failure of the material results in a good outcome:
snack time.

------
gtani
When i started skiing, I used to have bags of chips explode on me while
driving from the California coast to Lake Tahoe, scared the crap out of me. I
just decided to buy vacuum packed stuff up there.

------
glimcat
_"The point here is that while technical options exist to prevent premature
opening of the bag, such as reducing the initial air pressure in the bag,
attempting to add this to the existing processing equipment would be a
nightmare. So it was necessary to increase the seal strength."_

You could also reduce the air pressure _in the factory_ , e.g. by building it
in one of the aforementioned high-altitude regions.

~~~
ww520
And/or heat up the air filling the bag. As air cools, the volume decreases.

The right solution would be to squeeze to depress the bag a bit as it's
sealed. Increasing the seal strength is a quick and dirty hack, but as we've
all learned too well from software, the right solutions often got trumped by
quick and dirty hacks. The customers just have to live with the consequence.

~~~
jbri
Your ideas have other suboptimal consequences though - sucked-in bags don't
look as nice on the shelf, and in fact they look _smaller_. This makes them
less attractive and thus less likely to be purchased.

------
K2h
I'm usually pretty disappointed, because on a failed opening attempt I end up
crushing those chips, and then feel like I didn't really get my money's worth.

~~~
SoftwareMaven
It's alright. Chips and cereal are sold by weight, not volume. Some settling
(or crushing) of contents may have occurred during shipping and extraction.

~~~
K2h
I realize they are sold by weight, but I'll be honest, the full size
merchandise is worth more to me. It is even worse on cereal, my wife saves the
end of the box for me because i'll eat it. I prefer the full size, but
throwing out the 'fluff' (crushed bits and powder at the end) seems like a
waste.

------
johnpowell
Now I know who Kettle Chips hired to make their impossible to open bags.

~~~
MartinCron
I was just thinking about how Kettle Chips have a small but pronounced notch
that you can grab and pull. I haven't had any angst opening a bag of chips in
a long time.

~~~
unconed
And here i was, cursing the idiot at kettle who thought eating chips from the
side of the bag was a good idea. Opening from the top allows for easy reach
and easy reseal.

~~~
MartinCron
_eating chips from the side of the bag_

After you easily open the bag of chips, you pour them into a bowl and set on
the table. Do you drink wine straight from the bottle or pour it into wine
glasses?

~~~
biot
My good fellow, I'm sure that when you partake in the delicious fruit known as
an apple, undoubtedly you do like I and first neatly slice and core the apple.
Once the fruit is thus prepared, I find that arranging it neatly in a circular
pattern on a fine porcelain plate (preferably covered with an exquisite paper
doily) is a most acceptable presentation format. How uncouth are the heathens
who consume the apple straight from the stem, exposing the unsightly core in
plain view.

------
masterponomo
Not so difficult if you keep one pinkie nail 3 inches long and razor-sharp (as
do I).

------
carguy1983
_so when trucks would drive their chips out to California, some of the seals
would open up due to the pressure difference between the high altitude air and
the air sealed inside the bag_

This is backwards, isn't it? Less dense air from Colorado would shrink the bag
in California.

~~~
Dove
Yeah, it is. Your shampoo usually opens on the pass.

At a guess, maybe he meant the plants were east of the mountains, not west, so
they would have to drive over them?

~~~
carguy1983
Oh, right, the mountains :)

------
Daniel_Newby
> Other options besides a stronger seal are technically possible, but not
> economically feasible.

It would have cost next to nothing to attach slabs of foam rubber or gentle
spring plates to the sealer. As the two sides move together, the air is gently
squeezed out of the bag first. Sheer incompetence.

~~~
oasisbob
Wouldn't evacuating the air from the packaging make the chips inside the
container crush and break easier?

It's always been my understanding that the head room inside the package helps
protect the contents.

