2009 Innovation Insight Awards: Premium coffee roasting machines designed in an instant

MOST INNOVATIVE PRODUCT BY A MANUFACTURER ¦ THIRD PLACE Premium coffee has become big business in recent years, primarily because many consumers now consider having a good cup of coffee an essential part of their daily lives. Ponderosa Roasting, a manufacturer of coffee roasting machines, located outside San Diego, Calif.

By Sidney Hill, Executive Editor July 1, 2009

MOST INNOVATIVE PRODUCT BY A MANUFACTURER

Premium coffee has become big business in recent years, primarily because many consumers now consider having a good cup of coffee an essential part of their daily lives.

Ponderosa Roasting, a manufacturer of coffee roasting machines, located outside San Diego, Calif., believes its newest product will only add to the devotion people have for their morning brew.

Most coffee roasting machines use a drum that rotates and tumbles the coffee beans while heat is applied via burners.

Ponderosa, which designs coffee roasters ranging in capacity from one pound to nearly 500 pounds, precisely controls every variable in the roasting process, from how fast the beans turn in the drum to how much airflow they’re exposed to, as well as how much heat is applied by the burners at any given moment. By manipulating these variables, Ponderosa can create increasingly sophisticated and multifaceted flavor profiles for coffee.

Thanks to the digital prototyping technology embedded in the Inventor CAD package from Autodesk, Pondera Roasting is now turning out machines faster than ever.

Its latest product—a 15-kilogram roaster—was developed in just four weeks. This product also earned third place in the category Most Innovative Product by a Manufacturer in MBT’s 2009 Innovation Insight Awards competition.

"Nobody in the industry can provide the dynamics that we can with our roasters," says Boyd Guildner, cofounder and president of Ponderosa. "We wouldn’t have been able to create such an advanced roaster without Inventor. Inventor allowed us to think outside the box and explore multiple roaster designs before cutting a single piece of metal."

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