SASOL has adopted telepresence for collaboration between far-flung executives in Europe, North America and Africa. Running over the BT IP Connect global network it also enables federation with customers and suppliers. The solution’s earned Alec’s team a special recognition award from the CEO for bringing the company’s One SASOL philosophy and vision vibrantly to life

Care isn’t just part of the name at GSK Nutritional Healthcare. It’s at the heart of its customer help lines. But Ashley Thomas knew that the company’s legacy telephone technology was becoming a bit of a hindrance. Keen to boost customer service with new technology, a review of the market led Ashley to BT Cloud Contact

An infrastructure offering high levels of quality and flexibility was required as a platform for a new system. Buying or renting new servers – and connecting and configuring them in short timescales – would be an expensive and challenging task. The IMV technical team turned to BT and asked whether it would be possible to set up the system in a virtual environment .

Tesco, one of the world’s largest retailers, is using the BT Cloud Contact solution to give its UK customers an enhanced, more flexible and more responsive contact centre service.

Gürsoy, one of Turkey's most established hazelnut producers, is the first company in that country to harness the TOMRA 5C’s sorting technologies. 

Snak King looks to optimize its efficiency in throughput, while also seeking to alleviate labor shortages at its manufacturing facility in Freeport, Illinois.

Austrian start-up Selectum and Swiss technology group Bühler have jointly created a new, healthy snack category: small, crunchy wafer pillows with a creamy dip inside.

St-Méthode Bakery has chosen the UTrakk platform to empower its managers in the application of good management practices, including coaching and active supervision tours.

Read how R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company helped Levain Bakery meet a 200% increase in e-commerce demand during the pandemic.

Outstanding Foods turns to Crisp for a more efficient and effective way to look at its data.

Downey's Potato Chips has upgraded its machinery with new Vanmark peeling machines.

For its latest coated honey roast nut production line, Trigon Snacks selected a customized linear Stealth metal detector with an innovative retractable conveyor reject system.
 

The Killer Brownie Co. discusses the benefits of its new sanitary constructed, single tray dual lane product turning conveyor required to rotate single lane brownie containers 90°.  

Muffins, pastries, and croissants are very diverse and delicate products that must be handled with care, from distribution to primary packaging.

Replacing traditional manual sorting methods with a machine has enabled this well-known food producer to meet two key objectives, as well as solving the problem of labor shortages.

Bimbo QSR has selected TraceGains as its system of choice to automate supply chain operations.

The UK’s first “wonky” bread box required an an eco-friendly bag, and Earth & Wheat found the ideal solution in the form of a home-compostable bag supplied by KM Packaging.

Luxme International has supplied a SANILux Tubular Chain Conveyor with automated clean-in-place technology to nutrition bar manufacturer TruFood, enhancing food safety and increasing line efficiency at the company’s Pittsburgh-based facility.

Pall Membralox Microfiltration System equipped with ceramic membranes with gradient permeability technology plays a critical role in purifying valuable protein.

To meet the needs of its growing business, Hudson Bread turned to Niverplast for its expertise in packaging automation for the bakery industry—specifically, a bag-in-box solution for its frozen artisan bread packaging line. 

Puratos Serbia has utilized flour and dough analysis technology to help develop a game-changing quality assurance database for its extensive product line.

Growing food manufacturer rapidly adds mobile inventory solution to harmonize business systems and enhance productivity, traceability and sustainability.

An equipment update is helping to bring the artisan bread company into the modern age.

After acquiring Crown Bakeries and its Smyrna, GA facility, private equity firm Arbor Investments sought the expertise of Stellar’s Food & Beverage team to design and build an upgraded, state-of-the-art 200,000-square-foot processing facility.

Triton Innovation, LLC’s expertise in manufacturing and supplying equipment for a broad range of food handling and processing applications caught the attention of a commercial bakery.

John B. Sanfilippo & Son, in business for more than a century, relies upon the company's packaging technology in its nut processing and packaging operations.

In this case study, Multi-Conveyor recently built a massive system for a globally-recognized food manufacturer.

Riverside Natural Foods was able to double its packaging speeds by installing new packaging systems from tna.

New Jersey bakery Hudson Bread counts on Koenig for its high-quality bread production, with a new dough sheeting line as the newest addition to its production line.

Haas-Meincke food technologists helped develop Hup Seng recipes for its cookie assortment, which have been awarded with the Monde Selection International High Quality Trophy.

With demand on the rise, and hygiene a critical priority, Stäubli Robotics is expanding the possibilities for automation in food and other industries with high production requirements, strict hygiene requirements, and demanding humid environments.

It’s a fact of life in every industrial facility: Heavy machinery and a cavernous room are a bad combination. The noise generated in such an environment quickly becomes intolerable, not to mention dangerous for those working there.

UC San Diego Health, the only academic hospital in San Diego, is one of the premier health care providers in the United States and is nationally ranked in six adult medical and surgical specialties by U.S. News & World Report. With more than 1,500 doctors and scientists who are published experts in the field, UC San Diego Health provides unparalleled patient care.

As an organization highly committed to safety, it was important to this premium retailer that they take a proactive approach to control any hazardous energy that could impact safety and/or the efficiency of their stores – and the sooner the better. 

 In the age of customer-centric business models, it's easy to overlook the fundamental role of employees in driving business success. Here's one company's story utilizing a focused approach to enhance employee engagement.

Digital Postcards Drive 87% Engagement for First-Time Users, Reinforcing the Power of Multimedia and Mobile-Friendly Benefits Communication

Dorel Juvenile is the world's leading juvenile products company. When they wanted to develop a new infant car seat, they turned to Pennsylvania-based ID firm DesignThink.

DesignThink as the Innovation Incubator for the Ultra Lightweight Maxi Cosi Coral XP

A Cold January Day in 2017

The team at DesignThink was asked to visit Dorel Juvenile Group USA to review a "Special Project". The development team at Dorel JG wasted no time introducing us to their latest infant car seat (ICS) project. They were experimenting with the idea of developing a seat that would reduce the struggles parents faced when trying to transition their baby from the car and carry their baby in the removable seat portion of the ICS. The team at DesignThink has designed several car seats over the years and we instantly recognized the unique opportunity, as well as the challenge that this project offered, and were eager and excited to get started.

Our Role as the Innovation Incubator

We partnered with Dorel to act as the innovation incubator to lead the project team through the fuzzy front-end and define the product's overall features and characteristics of use. Upon successful concept definition, the project would be positioned under the Maxi Cosi brand and ultimately transferred to the Maxi Cosi team in Europe and a European design group to carry the innovation to production.

The Problem at Hand

By removing the seat from the base that is installed in the car, parents can take the baby with them while running errands or visiting people and places. However, a problem associated with this system is that some removable seats can weigh up to 16 lbs. and the baby can weigh up to 35 lbs. for a combined arm-crushing weight of 50+lbs.!!

We established two primary goals: 1) reduce the overall weight of the seat to lighten the load, while maintaining structural integrity as to achieve a top crash test rating, and 2) develop new methods that enable parents to more easily lift the seat when moving in and out of the vehicle and when transporting the child in the seat.

Our Approach (Decades of Experience and User Understanding Put to Test)

DesignThink is one of the leading firms in car seat development having brought several seats to the market and has a long history of creating break-through innovation, but this project pushed our team in new ways. The structure for the project utilized DesignThink's simplified "DEEP" process;

Define that for which we will solve

Express possible solutions as quick thumbnail stories

Explain the "what – why – wow" related to user needs

Prototype to demonstrate the merits of the idea

How the Project Unfolded

A series of innovation workshops were hosted at our studio to enable the team to think and problem solve with product at hand. The objective was to think in the "ideal" (do not worry about cost and construction initially) and to "fail fast" (explore, evaluate, and evolve). The following provided the high-level framework for how the team identified and pursued their ideas.

Established Design Targets

Led by our usability team, along with team members from Dorel, we hosted a several day innovation workshop at our studio. We began with a collaborative defining of the design targets based on use, expectations, pain points, and opportunities, which we affinitized and moved directly into physical prototyping to address and evaluate how well the concepts improved the user experience during day-to-day interactions.

DEEP: Innovation Workshops to prototype your idea. You are encouraged to be chaotic and messy! Fail fast! Dorel made sure plenty of product was on hand to fuel the innovation.

Inutitive Carry

Enhanced Confidence

Improved Transitions

Development of Design Targets

Role-Play is the Best Way

To truly understand and empathize with users, we role-played, exploring typical use-case scenarios to inform our ideation. Placing ourselves in the same situations helps us quickly evaluate and improve our concepts.

Handle-Carry:

Evolution for improved ease when attaching the seat to the base and removing the child from the vehicle

Cradle-Carry:

Exploration to improve how parents can bond with the baby in a more natural holding position

Cross-Body Strap:

Exploration to provide alternate ways to carry the baby while reducing the effects of weight and fatigue on the parent

Iterative User Evaluation Cycle

Our early thoughts and ideas were evaluated by the team and with parents in our research lab. These ideas were then refined to strengthen the evolving direction. The learnings obtained through this method enabled the team to focus on the most meaningful directions and build their value. Listening, understanding, and empathizing allowed our team to develop new ideas in this category that were previously unexplored.

DesignThink presents the refined design direction.

A series of prototypes and user evaluations enabled us to reach a stage of concept definition for an ultra lightweight car seat that provides parents with improved ways to carry, hold, and secure their baby.

Our Results

User-Centered Insights lead to Market Defining Solutions

Having developed many juvenile products such as car seats, strollers, and highchairs, DesignThink understands the day-to-day challenges parents face, both physically and emotionally. We embarked on this project with Dorel to define a new car seat with features that take into account those challenges and offer relevant and meaningful solutions. Exploring innovation that is rooted in user insights enabled our team to quickly define those solutions and overcome technical hurdles to deliver new experiences to address real problems faced by parents when using an ICS.

Defining the Direction

As mentioned, DesignThink was hired as the innovation incubator in the fuzzy front-end to develop and define a new architecture for this seat. Our work was documented and handed off to the Maxi-Cosi team in Europe. The output of our innovation incubation became the driving framework used by the teams in Europe to create a truly meaningful and relevant solution for parents in this category.

The DesignThink team is very proud to have been selected by Dorel to play such an important "behind the scenes" role in setting the direction for, and contributing to the success of, the Maxi Cosi Coral XP.

It takes a Village to Design a Car Seat

Snapshot of the iterative concept development that led to the final product

You can see more of DesignThink's work here.

A review of a past website design project we completed in Naples, Florida.

The post Naples Website Design Case Study : West Point Society of Naples first appeared on Website Design in Naples, Fort Myers Florida | Logo Design | Brian Joseph Studios.

To tie in with this month’s SoNYC birthday celebrations, we are hosting a collection of case

A twitter TeachIn about marine protected areas, hosted by @RJ_Dunlap on 4/8/2013

Selected responses categorized into 'helped', 'helped and harmed' and 'harmed'.

To tie in with this month’s SoNYC birthday celebrations, we are hosting a collection of case

To tie in with this month’s SoNYC birthday celebrations, we are hosting a collection of case

To tie in with this month’s SoNYC birthday celebrations, we are hosting a collection of case

To tie in with this month’s SoNYC birthday celebrations, we are hosting a collection of case

James King is a geomorphologist interested in exploring the processes that govern sediment transport and

Use of Proteomics for Dietary Reconstruction: A Case Study Using Animal Teeth from Ancient Mesopotamia  ACS Publications

How can an understated watch brand stand out against flashier, gem-encrusted offerings in China?

Is reducing a facility's energy consumption by over 130,000 kWh annually through HVAC optimization possible?