Petty engineering design rant 1 - juice carton spouts

Right, let’s design a spout for a carton of juice. So, what would be some good criteria for a well-functioning spout? Here’s a few suggestions:

1. easy to open.
2. re-sealable, keeping the liquid inside the box.
3. has an opening that allows juice to flow freely while pouring.
4. lets air back into the box so that the pouring liquid doesn’t sputter all over the place.
5. lets you get all the liquid out of the box without retaining the last 10% of the contents.
6. allows you to open without dirt getting into the box.

And somewhere down the line you might have “cheapness” and “ease of manufacture” as criteria.

So, Messrs Tetrapak/Somerfield/Tesco/Asda/Waitrose/Sainsbury/Morrisons/etc, how on earth did you come to the conclusion that this abysmal monstrosity would be a good design:












Eh? Eh?!

It’s difficult to open, doesn’t keep the liquid in, only allows a dribble to come out, splashes unpredictably as the air tries to get back in, keeps the last little bit of juice as some kind of hostage (presumably for some mysterious dark scheme of its own), and to open it you have to poke the dirty (and shaped-so-you-can’t-possibly-clean-it) bit into the box! (Take a breath.) Fail, fail, and fail again. Opening the box the old-fashioned way with a pair of scissors is better on at least 4 of those criteria...

And I bet it isn’t any cheaper or easier to manufacture than any of the other liquid-container-openings out there. Bring on the pair of scissors.

Rant over :o)
J