Aquabox provides safe drinking water and humanitarian aid to people affected by natural disasters, extreme weather and conflicts. This charity based in Derbyshire manufactures two types of water filters; a family filter and a community filter. Both use the same technology based on sub-micron filter membranes.  A single Aquabox family filter can convert up to half a million litres of polluted water into save, clean water for people in desperate conditions. Aquabox is run almost entirely by volunteers, they have manufacturing and distribution costs however those volunteers are the ones who make and assemble the water filters onsite before sending them out to people in need as part of an aid box.

The challenge

Aquabox are beginning to manufacture and assemble a new generation of filter at their Derbyshire site. Several volunteers who work on site found one particular area of assembly tricky due to the tight seal required and the less nimble figures of some of the older volunteers who complete the assembly work.

Due to the nature of the ‘job’ the filter is doing this seal is critical to the successful operation within the field. It’s not the easiest of assembly tasks to get the two different seals onto the spindle they sit on especially if you are in the 80s and have a touch of arthritis!

The solution

Dominic Wish, trustee of Aquabox who is leading the introduction of the new generation of filter, had an idea on how a small tool could help with sliding the seal and the O ring into position more easily.

Apexis Engineering got to work on refining Dominic’s hand drawn concept idea into CAD; once we had a detailed design our machine shop partner S.T. Engineering were able to see if they could make it (they could!).

The end result was two tools; one for the seal that is at the higher ridge of the spindle and the other for the seal at the lower ridge of the spindle. The idea is to load the O ring and seals onto the shaft of the tool then simply slide them over the more bulbous head to easily slide them into the ridges where they sit.

The metal makes it easy to slide the O ring and to grab the seal to pull that into the position; the tools were affectionately called the small port and sherry glasses here at unit 5!

The client feedback

Dominic says “It is always a pleasure working with Apexis Engineering; they take my crazy ideas and scribbled sketches and come up with an easy-to-use solution that makes the tasks of our volunteers assembling filters so much easier.  What’s not to like with that?”

We make it happen

As part of our CSR commitment we delivered this project to Aquabox, who are a registered charity, free of charge. We respect the work that is undertaken on site that is completed to provide people desperately in need of safe water so are happy to support them with engineering projects such as this.

Craig Harbron says “The assembly line at Aquabox is very impressive; it’s clear what needs to be completed at each station and the volunteers are producing very high quality products which are rigorously tested at the end of the assembly line. It’s always a pleasure to visit Aquabox and see the volunteers in action where I can usually catch up with a retired engineer for a quick chat on what I’ve designed and supplied to them which is always enjoyable and valuable for me personally.”

See how you can support Aquabox here Aquabox – Clean Water in a Crisis