Cannon Hygiene
Mena - manual and no-touch automatic sanitary waste management system
Background
Facing increasing competition, Cannon Hygiene sought efficiencies in it’s feminine hygiene waste service offer.
Objectives included:
Increased waste capacity.
Reducing overall product size.
Anti-microbial materials.
Reduced exchange time on-site.
Improved van capacity utilisation.
Improved wash capacity utilisation.
Automated electronic no-touch option.
Discovery
Working with Cannon’s team, our industrial designers observed how the stakeholders in a complex delivery chain interacted with current products to create a value map of the service process.
Focusing on design opportunities for improvement we considered:
“hard” factors, such as fit in washrooms, ergonomic operation, how parts could arrive optimised on pallets, cleaning, delivery, and disposal at end-of-life.
“soft” factors, like foot pedal sensitivity, odour, appearance, and the feel of materials and mechanisms.
Design
Iterations of models, visuals, and 3D CAD simulations were used to develop test, and improve the design.
Electronics for a no-touch variant were developed with careful design to avoid false activation.
User groups and test runs helped inform design decisions that had significant impacts throughout Cannon Hygiene’s service process.
Technical challenges resolved included materials, tolerance, power-management battery life, ingress protection mould-flow issues inherent in minimising cost and production time.
Delivery
Working closely with moulding production partners, parts were designed to optimise nesting and efficient palletisation, improving delivery transport utilisation and reducing storage space requirements.
Results
Brand impact
The opening mechanism reduces a user’s view of contents, improving user experience. Following visual cues in the form of other Cannon products a family feel optimises brand recognition.
Safety
Detailed design included specification and testing of anti-microbial polymers, drain-off orientation, and features to avoid dirt traps and to improve wash performance.
Usability and Sustainability
A rear-handle enabled operatives to carry twice as many bins, reducing time on site, and increasing round capacity. Reducing overall dimensions enabled vehicle shelf re-configuration, increasing capacity by 20%.
Accelerating disassembly, racking and reassembly in a hot wash cycle delivered further cost and environmental benefits.
The whole unit is designed for end-of-life disassembly and recycling.
Manufacturability
Providing unambiguous engineering design specifications manufacturing subcontractors were involved early and throughout the design process.