Shower Units

Key Issues

 

Company

Caradon Mira

Product

'Handel' and 'Advance' shower units

Objectives

  • Reduce product cost
  • Simplify assembly
  • Improve functional and reliability
  • Approach

    Concurrent engineering team using Design for Manufacture and Assembly tools

    ‘Handel’ Shower Units

    The ‘Handel’ shower unit supersedes the 'Excel' version in two ways. It has improved features such as pre-set settings that can be overridden but return to a safe state when the shower is turned off, and adopts a smart new styling.

    Taking the original Excel as the baseline the additional customer benefit features were included while at the same time reducing the part count. In short an improved product with more features and at a lower cost giving:
     

    Benefits

    23% parts reduction
    27% potential reduction in assembly time

     

    'Advance' Shower Units

    This electrically heated shower unit has on board a micro-processor control that can store pre-set favourite settings for all the family.  Additional features enable constant temperature under all conditions of use and prevents any possibility of scalding should a fault occur.  This is achieved by the use of dual hardware and software systems.

    Having embodied the desired features in an initial product concept the development team devoted a week to perform a DFA analysis to refine and optimise the final design.  This was achieved without compromise to the desired performance features.  Now a familiar product on the retailers display shelves, this is a much improved design from the original concept at the outset of the  DFA workshop.  Reduction in parts count not only reduced the cost but simplified assembly, resulting in improved build quality and reliability.

    Benefits

    32% parts reduction
    23% potential reduction in assembly time
     

    Copyright 1998, 1999. Computer Sciences Corporation. All rights reserved.
    http://www.teamset.com/casestudy/mira.html