An Innovative Solution to an Age-Old Problem: Anti-Lice Hair Accessories
An Innovative Solution to an Age-Old Problem: Anti-Lice Hair Accessories
Prototyping and patenting is always only one part of the challenge. Manufacturing a new product in a new material is another. The logistics of getting it to the market is the third. For the world’s first anti-lice accessories patent, we established the right balance across the whole chain, from idea to an end product ready for mass production and global distribution.
Prototyping and patenting is always only one part of the challenge. Manufacturing a new product in a new material is another. The logistics of getting it to the market is the third.
For the world’s first anti-lice accessories patent, we established the right balance across the whole chain, from idea to an end product ready for mass production and global distribution.
In 2015, we were approached by Hiprox products, a young company with the revolutionary idea of creating the world’s first active anti-lice hair accessories. They needed assistance resolving development, production and distribution barriers.
They had come to the right place. We welcome complex projects.
Transforming an idea into a physical product is a challenging process. Planning and preparing a complete product book is critical for success, and must be done by an expert team that not only understands the idea itself, but also sees the bigger picture. A product that is perfectly planned but can’t reach the market price due to a lack of consideration for manufacturing or standards or logistic efficiency is useless and can potentially lead to a massive waste of time and money.
But the biggest challenge remained that the raw material was entirely new. The factories had zero knowledge about the material behavior – and neither did we. The production line had to be completely customized.
Working closely with both the Hiprox team and the factories, we broke up each part of the production line, deep diving into minor details from the machine type to the small equipment to workforce training.
We chose the classic 3-step approach: Plan. Develop. Test.
Hiprox demanded excellence. With no room for low standards or mistakes, we could not compromise on inspections, factory auditing, certificates and standards. We had to follow 100% of their requirements.
The first stage was to specify and document every step we were going to take, from which suppliers we would look for, how to meet budget requirements, a time-to-market deadline, KPIs and how we meant to overcome the obstacles we were going to face. The project led by the owners of both companies. (Hiprox and Telop)
We were creating products that didn’t exist - yet. We needed to create new plastic molds, 3D models and prototypes. The engineer and industrial designer’s drawings were followed to the letter to make molds ready for plastic injection.
The real challenge, however, came from the combining of new materials into the plastic as this is what this special patented product is all about.
Medical products always tend to behave in a way that is hard to predict. We ran more than 100 tests until we had an excellent product ready for mass production. We tested the products; ingredient combinations and reactions; the plastic injection into the mold; and the new production line to make sure all the sections worked smoothly.
We accomplished what we set out to achieve: to take the first anti-lice hair accessories from idea to mass production. We met (and exceeded) the following KPIs:
We thrive on transforming new concepts into mass produced, globally distributed products.
