Our vehicle storage solutions get a clean bill of health from Olympus KeyMed

To accomplish this key requirement, Olympus KeyMed needed a company who would design, manufacture and install storage equipment into a fleet of Mercedes Vito vans.  However, because of the nature of the medical equipment being transported, the company had a detailed list of requirements, firstly to ensure equipment could be demonstrated effectively and secondly to maximum driver protection in the event of a road traffic accident.

As Daniel Wallaker of Olympus KeyMed explains: “We needed the vehicles to have a generic system, which catered for four different sales divisions of the business, Gastrointestinal & Respiratory, Diagnostics, Imaging, and Urology.  Each of these divisions has their own specific challenges in the types of equipment to be transported, yet all vehicles needed to be fitted with the same solution.  The type of medical equipment ranges from delicate devices, such as camera heads and rigid telescopes for arthroscopy, to a full video endoscopy system.

Chris Garner, bott designer said: “Each of the vehicles needs to carry a large amount of equipment and so when creating a solution for Olympus KeyMed we had to ensure there was enough storage to contain it all safely, making sure it was under the vehicle payload but still strong enough to pass the vital sled test.”

Once the installation was complete the whole design then had to be sled tested at MIRA (formerly the Motor Industry Research Association) in Warwickshire, as the bespoke design was required to undergo a simulated frontal impact test based on the requirements of ECE Regulation 17.

The objective of this test was to ensure in the event of a frontal impact, total equipment weighing 550kg could be restrained in the load compartment of the Mercedes Vito fitted with the bott system and not penetrate through to the cab area.

With simulated Olympus KeyMed equipment secured in the correct positions in the rear of the vehicle, a crash-test-dummy was put in the driver’s seat.  Extra loads were also added to the rear of the vehicle to make a total mass 550kg (including 10 per cent added safety factor), representing the customer’s worst case loading configuration.  The engineers at MIRA then accelerated the bodyshell to give a change of velocity of approximately 31 – 34mph (50 – 50Kph) and high speed cameras were positioned to record the system during the acceleration pulse. The bott solution met the requirements of a successful test with flying colours, achieving excellent results, with no penetration of the rear load equipment into the cab area.

Daniel knows they have found the perfect solution to meet Olympus KeyMed’s needs, he said: “We specified the solution had to be generic to all vehicles but be suitable for all four sales divisions, pass the objective of an impact based on ECE Regulation 17 testing, meet our health and safety requirements and obviously aesthetically look right for our marketplace.  Bott has met all these requests and more.”

Chris added: “Olympus KeyMed was so pleased with our solution that we have already designed a further system that has also been sled tested, this time on a design for a VW Transporter SWB low roof vehicle.”