Patent Application
20190053518
This application does not claim benefits of any earlier filed application.
This invention was not supported in whole or in part by government funds.
The invention relates to edible pet chews. More particularly, the invention describes a method for mechanically knotting artificial pet chews such as edible dog bones, and the pet chews made using the method.
The Rawhide Dog Chew. Rawhide based dog chews have been manufactured and marketed commercially for over 50 years. Rawhide dogs chews are manufactured by taking the second or lower layer of a cow hide (skin). The hide of a cow grows to different depths all over the cows body, consequently when removed the hide is of variable thickness. So the hide is processed through a splitting machine that takes off a constant gauge upper layer of hide which is usually chemically tanned for use as leather.
The lower layer that remains with variable thickness is not suitable for leather use and has lower value. For use in animal chews, this layer of hide is then cleaned using bleaching agents and rinsed with water. While wet, the rawhide is soft and malleable and can be manipulated by hand, rolled, shaped, and knotted into artificial dog bones. After drying the rawhide becomes very stiff and provides appropriate resistance with some flavor to the chewing of a dog. It softens with the dog's saliva so that is can be chewed into pieces and ultimately digested, being comprised of 80% protein.
The YouTube video accessible at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIAarnbs8do on Jul. 20, 2017, shows how the rawhide discard layer is cut into rectangles and softened to make it malleable so that it can be rolled and knotted by hand for use in dog chews.
The Dingo Bone. A new innovation on the rawhide dog chew, Sherrill (U.S. Pat. No. 5,673,653), was introduced in the late 1990's. The '653 patent, produced commercially as the Dingo Bone and depicted in
No machine exists capable of the manual dexterity of the knotting actions required in the final steps of producing knotted rawhide dog chews and, in particular, that might be capable of accommodating the variation in the gauge thickness of both the meat and rawhide sheets. Most of the manufacturing is carried out in low cost labor countries ($5/day), such as China and South East Asia. As such, the marginal cost of completing the knotting procedure using human labor results in an acceptable retail price in the consumer markets.
The Smart Bone. In 2010, Stern (U.S. Pat. No. 7,677,203) patented an innovation in animal chews comprising replacing the outer rawhide sheet of the layered knotted dog bone with an extruded, substantially plant based sheet made of materials such as corn, rice, potato starch, wheat gluten, among others. Like the Dingo Bone, The Stern “Smart Bone” includes an edible preferably meat based inner sheet. When initially extruded, the plant based sheets are malleable and can be manipulated. After drying they harden and provide resistance to chewing. The Smart Bone offers the advantage over the Dingo Bone that flavor and smell can easily be added to the extruded plant based ingredients so the palatability of the inner layer became less important. The dwell or chewing time is comparatively lower than that of the rawhide chew but the overall utility is greater. As with the Dingo Bone, two sheets are superimposed and rolled together and both ends knotted manually. The Smart Bone innovation was timely because the cost of rawhide has increased historically each year with improvements to the tanning process and other higher uses for rawhide such as gelatin and cosmetics, thus increasing the economic attractiveness of using plant based material as an alternative material for pet chews in place of the lower hide layer.
The method of Stern is illustrated in
Current Environment. The cost of labor is increasing in most Asian countries. Labor is moving up-market and where workers were plentiful for doing this type of work, requiring strenuous and repetitious manual dexterity, it is becoming difficult to recruit them.
Adding to this are problems with perceived quality of food products emanating from Asia, specifically China, with the embarrassing 2007 wheat gluten based dog food recall where manufacturers were artificially boosting protein levels using an banned adulterant called melamine. As a result of this and related events, there has been an increasing distrust of Asian based manufacturing quality assurance.
Whereas previously, manufacturing of artificial dog bones took place in Asia because the cost to manufacture these goods in the United States would be five times as much, currently it may not even been possible to find U.S. domestic labor willing to engage in such manufacturing activities.
Accordingly, there is a need for a method for the fabrication of artificial dog bones in which the step of knotting the dog bone layers in mechanized in order to avoid the extensive use and increasing expense of human labor.
While dog chews come in all shapes, rolls/sticks/chips/braids, ninety percent of all dog chews are sold in a double knot form. Tying a rawhide or rawhide and meat knotted bone mechanically using the materials described above is no easier now than it was when such artificial done bones first become commercially available 20 years ago. Even with advancements in robotics, tying an overhand knot is difficult but tying the second knot is even more difficult, particularly using a rolled sheet of wet rawhide.
The innovation in the '203 patent, in which extruded plant material is used in lieu of treated rawhide scraps, creates a new opportunity because extruding a constant gauge sheet or tube shape is more susceptible to a mechanized knotting process.
Current robotic options for tying overhand knots do not provide a cost effective solution to the problem of rising labor costs. Assuming the current cost of approximately $30,000 per robot arm, and that a minimum of two arms would be required for a knotting procedure, the payback over human labor would require many years. Moreover, robotics is not expected to be significantly faster than human labor tying knots. Accordingly, robotics in its current state does not offer an attractive solution to the increasing costs of the human labor factor in the fabrication process of artificial dog bones.
Illustrating this is a YouTube video showing robotic arms learning to tie knots accessible at https://www.youtube.com/watch?vAJllD3AiSqs on Jun. 20, 2017. The process is time and labor intensive, requiring many individual steps. The robotic arms make use of the flat surface. Whether robots are spatially aware enough to perform this function “in the air”, or whether the task can be successfully completed on a flat surface, are questions that remain unanswered.
An object of the current invention is to provide a method for fabricating artificial dog bones in which the tying step is mechanized so as to avoid the use of human labor.
Another object of the current invention is to provide a method for fabricating artificial dog bones in which the bones are double knotted without the use of human labor.
An further object of the current invention is to provide a method for fabricating artificial dog bones in which the tying step is mechanized without or while minimizing the complexity and cost of using robotics.
A further object of the current invention is to provide a fully mechanized method of making knotted pet chews to include chews fabricated from rawhide, chews fabricated from extruded plant material, and chews that include a meat layer.
A further object of the current invention is to reduce the cost to produce knotted animal chews in countries with higher labor costs.
A further object of the current invention is to encourage the U.S. domestic production of knotted dog chews.
These and other objects are accomplished in the present invention, an improved method for making knotted animal chews wherein the step of knotting and double knotting is mechanized, and knotted animal chews produced using the novel method.
According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, sheets of extruded plant material are optionally rolled together with a meat layer and then mechanically knotted with the aid of a specially configured knot box.
According to a further preferred embodiment of the present invention, sheets of extruded plant material are optionally rolled together with a meat layer and then mechanically knotted, and then knotted again, each time with the aid of a specially configured knot box.
According to a further preferred embodiment of the present invention, treated rawhide scraps are optionally rolled together with a meat layer and then mechanically knotted, and then knotted again, each time with the aid of a specially configured knot box.
The specially configured knot box is comprised of a housing with tubular chamber, said chamber taking the form of an overhand knot with the inner surface of the chamber cutaway, an entry port and an exit port, with the proximal entry port region widened to accommodate the knot formed in the rolled chew material.
The method of the invention comprises taking rolled or folded layered animal chew material, pushing a first end of the rolled material into the entry port of the knot box chamber until that end extends out the exit port of the chamber, grasping and pulling on both ends of the rolled material so that a knot forms along the length of the material inside the knot box chamber, and then withdrawing the knotted material from the entry port. The material is then rotated and the process is repeated on the second end of said folded chew material in order to form a double knot.
According to a second embodiment of the specially configured knot box, the box is similarly constructed with a tubular chamber in the form of a overhand knot, but is comprised of two mirror image halves split along the chamber axis. According to the method of this embodiment, the box is separated into two pieces after the rolled material is threaded through, and before the ends of the material are pulled to form a knot. The knot box used in this embodiment does not require the inside surface of the tubular chamber to be cutaway or the entry port region to be widened.
The process is mechanized by having a mechanical arm grab, push and pull the rolled chew material through the entry port and within the knot box, and having a mechanical clamp grasp the inserted end of the material once extended beyond the exit port.
The process can be used to knot a variety of animal chew materials and animal chew materials configured with different layers, configurations, dimensions and cross-sections.
One aspect of the subject invention is to mechanize the tying step of fabricating knotted animal chews.
A further aspect of the subject invention is to mechanize the entire process of making artificial knotted dog bones, thereby avoiding human labor and the costs associated therewith.
A further aspects of the subject invention is to modify the current method of fabricating artificial knotted dog bones to lower the cost of manufacture in countries with high labor costs, thereby encouraging, for example, the U.S. domestic manufacture of such products.
Still a further aspect of the current invention is to provide a method for fabricating artificial dog bones in which the tying step is mechanized without or while minimizing the complexity and cost of using robotics.
The subject invention, a mechanized method for making knotted animal chews, exploits the difference between pushing and pulling an elongated flexible member within a knot box. When pushed, the elongated member having sufficient stiffness in a curved tube will tend to follow the outside edge of the tube. When pulled, the member will tends to converge to the shortest path between the points at which the tension is being applied, subject to any obstacles in the way.
The method of the subject invention lends itself to a non-robot mechanized approach, or alternatively a single robotic arm mechanized approach. The method adopts technology described by M. Bell and D. Balkcon, “Knot Tying with Single Fixtures”, Robotics and Automation, 2008. ICRA 2008. IEEE May, 2008. The Bell and Balkcon study focused on tying small gauge wire thread using a knot box. The subject invention adopts that method to rolled sheets of edible pet chew material, whether treated rawhide or extruded plant material or both combined, in the form of larger gauge flexible tubing.
The method of the subject invention employs a knot box housing configured with an inside tubular chamber having an entry port, an exit port, and shaped for the desired knot. For purposes of a preferred embodiment of the instant invention, the tubular chamber within the knot box is configured for a standard overhand knot. The tubular chamber is expanded to avoid self-intersection. Illustrated in
According to the method of the subject invention, layered animal chew material is rolled and folded to form a flexible elongated member. The elongated member is pushed into the entry port of a knot box tube to form an loose overhand knot. However the knot cannot be removed without dissolving or breaking the knot box. Although the knot so formed could be extracted by cutting the box and separating the pieces, this would require that the knot box be separated and then re-assembled for each use.
A second design step is needed for providing a solid piece knot box that does not require separation and reassembly for each use. Because a flexible elongated member will move to the inside edge of a curved tube when it is pulled, the knot box is further configured to remove or cutaway a portion of the inside surface of the tubular chamber of the box allowing the knot, once formed, to be tightened around itself without obstacle, as illustrated in
With the knot box properly configured, a mechanical arm is employed that automatically takes a precut length of the extruded sheet that has been rolled/folded into a solid or hollow tube elongated member. Holding the elongated member at a point along its length, the arm inserts a first end of the member into the entry port of an overhand knot configured knot box and pushes said member through the tubular chamber of the knot box until the inserted end extends out the exit port of the knot box. The stiff member will follow the outside surface of the tubular knot box chamber to form a loose overhand knot. Pushed sufficiently, the first end of the elongated member presents itself at the exit port of the knot box tube. This end is then automatically clamped by a clamping mechanism. The mechanical arm holding the member along its length then reverses the pushing action to a pulling action, tightening the loose knot that is formed along the length of the elongated member. The cutaway along the inside surface of the tubular chamber allows the knot to form without obstruction. After tightening, the clamp on the exit port end of the box releases the first end of the elongated member, and the mechanical arm withdraws the now knotted member from the box through the widened entry port. Illustrated in
For a double knotted configuration, the mechanical arm rotates 180 degrees and inserts the un-knotted or second end of the now single knotted elongated member into the knot box and the process is repeated resulting in an artificial dog bone demonstrating two knots.
An alternative preferred embodiment of the method of the subject invention employs a knot box that separates into two sides or pieces. According to this embodiment, the tubular chamber within the knot box does not include a cutaway along its inside surface, because once the knot box is separated, there are no obstructions to knotting. In all other respects, the essential configuration of knot box, the pathway for the inter-looping of the knot, and the hollow center chamber of the box remain the same as in the first disclosed embodiment.
The method of this alternative embodiment comprises the steps of feeding a first end of a rolled or folded edible chew material (the “elongated member”) into the knot box until the first end presents itself at the exit port, clamping said first end, separating the two sides of the knot box, pulling on the each end of the elongated member simultaneously to form a knot along the length of the elongated member, releasing the first end of the member from the clamp, re-assembling the two-piece knot box, rotating the now knotted member 180 degrees, inserting the second end of the single knotted member into the entry port of the re-assembled knot box, and repeating the steps to form a double knotted animal chew. A mechanical arm can be used to hold, separate and reassemble the two halves of the alternative embodiment knot box.
Illustrated in
Chamber 12 exhibits an enlarged inside section 18 such that, when member 20 is pulled from either side and knotted, the overlapping aspect of member 20 is clear of any obstruction that could hinder or obstruct the knotting process.
The details of the chamber 12 and cutaway surface 18 relative to elongated member 20 are illustrated in
Depicted in
A first embodiment knot box 10 is illustrated in
A first end 24 of elongated member 20 is threaded into entry port 14 until first end 24 presents itself from and extends out beyond exit port 16 as shown in
Although entry port 14 is illustrated in
A second embodiment knot box 10′ is illustrated in
According to this second embodiment as best illustrated in
Box halves 10′a and 10′b can be identical mirror image halves, or one of the halves can be more substantial than the other, so long as when split, tubular chamber 12 is sufficiently exposed to allow withdrawal of overlapping member 20 before knotting.
According to the method of the subject invention using second embodiment knot box 10′, a first end 24 of elongated member 20 is threaded into entry port 14 until first end 24 presents itself from and extends out beyond exit port 16 as shown in
Thereafter, first half 10′a and second half 10′b of knot box 10′ are separated as shown in
Although knot boxes 10 and 10′ are shown in
According to a further embodiment, not shown, the method would employ four sizes of knot boxes to accommodate layered and rolled rawhide or extruded plant material of different diameters to produce the four usual sizes—mini, small, medium, and large—of commercially marketed artificial dog bones.
Plant material can be prepared and extruded to exhibit appropriate flexibility and stillness suitable for mechanical tying using the disclosed knot box method. When using treated rawhide remnants, attention must be paid to the moisture content of the hydrated rawhide sheet. Hand tied rawhide is typically in a very soft state for ease of tying and would not be sufficiently stiff to be pressed along the outside surface of the knot box chamber. With control of the rawhide moisture content, appropriate stiffness is obtainable preserving treated rawhide scrap's utility for use in the mechanized method of the subject invention.
Also encompassed within the subject invention are methods of rolling and folding extruded edible chew materials to produce elongated structures suitable for use in the mechanized knotting protocol described herein. Alternative structures are illustrated in
Illustrated in
Illustrated in
Many other variations and profiles of rolled and folded dual and even tri-layered chew material can be employed in the method of the present invention without departing from its intent and scope.
The steps of the method of the instant invention are further illustrated in
According to the method illustrated in
In a subsequent step, first end 24 of elongated member 20 is inserted into entry port 14 of box 10 and pushed through box 10 until first end 24 of member 20 extends beyond exit port 16 of box 10.
First end 24 and second end 26 are then pulled, simultaneously, to form a knot along the length of member 20. Now knotted member 20 is withdrawn from the enlarged entry port 14.
The process is then repeated, in an optional final step, but with the insertion this time of second end 26 of elongated member 20 to mechanically form a double knot along the length of member 20.
The second embodiment method illustrated in
As will be appreciated from the description, examples and accompanying drawings, the novel method for making animal chews of the instant invention provides for a fully mechanized approach to making knotted animal chews, avoiding the expense and other negative aspects of employing human labor to complete mind-less, simple repetitive manual tasks.
This novel process for the fabrication of dog chews in which rolled or folded layered sheets are tied mechanically as opposed by human labor enables a U.S. domestic based manufacturing industry that can utilize domestic ingredients and quality assurance practices that reassures domestic consumers and create significant brand equity and margin premium.
Although the invention has been described in terms artificial dog bones comprised of layers of rawhide remnants, extruded plant material, meat and other protein, mechanically knotted into their final form, the method of the current invention can also be applied to artificial dog bones comprised of a rolled single layer, or two or more layers, and layers comprised of materials suitable for pet chews other than the materials specifically disclosed herein. Similarly, artificially knotted pet chews having knots other than the overhand knot described and illustrated, methods that results in an artificial pet bones having more than one type of knot, and potentially more than two knots, are considered to be fairly within the intent and scope of the disclosed invention.
Multiple variations and modifications are possible in the embodiments of the invention described here. Although certain illustrative embodiments of the invention have been shown and described here, a wide range of modifications, changes and substitutions is contemplated in the foregoing disclosure. While the above description contains many specifics, these should not be construed as limitations on the scope of the invention, but rather as exemplifications of one or another preferred embodiment thereof. In some instances, some features of the present invention may be employed without a corresponding use of the other features. Method steps may be followed in orders other than the orders described and illustrated herein. Accordingly, it is appropriate that the foregoing description be construed broadly and understood as being given by way of illustration and example only, the spirit and scope of the invention being limited only by the claims which ultimately issue.
