WENTWORTH INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

MANAGEMENT

C R AYO L A C R AYO N S
M A N U FAC T U R I N G
P RO C E S S
FROM RAW MATERIAL TO DELIVERY

J U L I A N N A C H AV E S
CONTEMPORARY MANUFACTRUING

PRODUCT
C R AYO L A C R AYO N

Crayola Crayons were invented in 1902 by Binney and Smith. Crayola currently manufactures
over three billion crayons a year, which is an average of twelve million a day, thats enough to wrap
around the earth 6 times.

MATERIAL ACQUIREMENT

Acquire raw materials such as paraffin wax and powder color pigments from outside sources. The
paraffin wax that Crayola uses is made especially for them by companies that extract the wax from
wood, coal and petroleum products. The pigments come from various places, from the earth, from
minerals or made in laboratories. The paraffin wax is shipped in on railcar and the other raw
materials are trucked in, then stored in the warehouses.
The paraffin wax is heated with steam and then pumped into the warehouse silos and stored at 175
F.
MIXTURE

When the process begins paraffin wax is pumped into the plant.
Premeasured amounts of dry color pigment and clay are added to the wax in the blending process.

MOLDING

This crayon mixture is pumped to the rotary mold, which is made of individual crayon molds, each
of these molds makes 650 crayons a minute. Once the crayon mixture is pumped into the molds, the
mold rotates making only one revolution every minute. The mold is cooled during this revolution
with cooling water, so that the liquefied crayon mixture will harden during this minute.
LABELING

A pick and place robot, instead of an employee, is used to transfer the crayons to the labeling
operations area. The robot is able to move 650 crayons a minute.
The robot places the crayons on a conveyor. A machine then cuts the label, heats it, then double
wraps around the crayon. This is still done at a speed of 650 crayons a minute.
Q UA L I T Y A S S U R A N C E

Once the crayons are labeled there are quality control checks. The machine checks to make sure the
label is in the correct position, there are no broken points, or other defects. Part of this process is
also done by the operator when they pick up the crayons off of the machine. Operators pick up
200-300 crayons in a handful. They visually inspect the crayons as they do so.
PA C K A G I N G

The operator moves the crayons by hand into stock boxes. These stock boxes are placed on the
warehouse side of the factory until they are needed for packaging.
Material handlers bring in the stock boxes from the warehouse and put them on a rotating wheel for
the packer operator.
The packer operator is able to rotate the wheel to pick the color they want to place into a hopper.
When the wheel stops the packer picks up 200-300 crayons and inserts them into a hopper on the
line they are working on. The lines vary by the packaging size, for example, 8, 24, 96, packs of
crayons.
The operator then loads a folding carton into the back of the machine. The packing machine places
the specific packaging size amount of crayons into the boxes, eight crayons at a time. For a box of
24 this is a three step process. The packing machine then inspects the boxes to make sure that it is
closed with no defects in the box. The packing machine runs the boxes through a metal detector to
make sure there is not metal in the box or in the crayons.
From the packing machine the crayons are then conveyed on a large conveyor belt line, where they
go to the final packing process.
F I N A L PA C K I N G & S H I P M E N T

The boxes of crayons are bundled in packs of 12 and shrink wrapped by a machine.
The operator then places the bundles into retail boxes, where the crayons are ready for shipment.
Crayolas major markets are divided into three sectors. They sell products directly to retail stores
through traditional distribution chains. Products are also sold directly to schools, school suppliers,
office suppliers, and specialty markets. And the final sector is for overseas through an international
division. Crayola distributes in the typical methods of transportation, plane, train, and truck.