Northern Dairy Equipment
Challenge
The Product. The Teat Sanicleanse System is an award-winning product that provides a reliable, economic and hygienic way of washing cows’ teats before milking. The product washes, disinfects, dries and stimulates the teats in just 10 seconds, and it saves dairy farmers time and money while their herds benefit from improved teat condition and better overall health. The Problem. While the Teat Sanicleanse was a fantastic product, the assembly structure meant some individual components were expensive and assembly time-consuming. Northern Dairy Equipment wanted to streamline the structure, making it more efficient in terms of cost and time.
Solution
Our collaboration with Northern Dairy began as a reverse engineering project. We took each individual component and turned them into 3D data for manufacture. As we worked on the components, it soon became clear there were opportunities to improve their functionality while also reducing the costs for manufacture, so we moved into product design mode. By redesigning the components for injection moulding we were able to streamline the process, incorporating several ‘free features’ created within the injection-moulding process to replace the expensive, CNC-machined parts. To test the new design prior to tooling we created a series of prototypes. This allowed us to test the functionality of the parts and present the new design to customers for their feedback, before committing any outlay of investment in manufacture. We also generated a series of visual renders so we could compare different colour combinations. This allowed for market feedback on the colour scheme and gave Northern Dairy the resource to assist their marketed material. By focusing on design for manufacture, we produced a new design that was far more efficient for injection moulding than the original one. The new components were more reliable and produced to a higher quality, which benefitted the entire process including the assembly stage where parts consistently fitted concisely and correctly. Finally, Northern Dairy used our sister company, Nebulem Manufacturing LTD, for production of the new components. Not only did this make the process more efficient and give quality assurance from the initial design process to the manufacture of parts, it also made life easier for Northern Dairy who had one point of contact throughout the entire process.
Results
The Teat Sanicleanse System continues to impress worldwide, while the process used to manufacture the product has been streamlined. The product enjoys higher quality parts and the manufacturing process is more efficient, and cost effective to produce. Meanwhile, we continue to work with Northern Dairy to design and develop new products.
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