Doing the Twist!
Whale (Munster Simms Engineering Ltd), a Bangor based manufacturer and supplier of Marine & RV equipment, recently teamed up with the University of Ulster to design and produce an innovative Deck Shower.
Whale (Munster Simms Engineering Ltd) are a privately owned company, with over 60 years experience in the design, manufacture and supply of Water Systems Products. They employ around 130 people, and also have a US based subsidiary, supplying over 900 products to over 100 OEM customers globally, including companies such as Sunseeker and Caterpillar.
“The design brief came about at a Trade Show in 2006, upon the realisation that manufacturers and suppliers of Deck or Transom Showers were failing to meet the needs of the customer in providing in a well-designed and innovative product to integrate into their marine structures,” says Mr. Patrick Hurst, Managing Director.
Upon his return to the North Down base, Patrick asked Senior Project Engineer Mr. Eddie Gilmore to undertake the brief and deliver a solution that would both excite the existing customer base whilst drawing the attention of potential new customers. The resulting solution is the most innovative product in this area for almost 10 years.
In January 2007, Eddie contacted Stephen McGilloway, a lecturer in Product Design at the Belfast Campus and who along side Justin Magee are commercially known as ‘BigSmall’, design consultants for UUTech Ltd., to become involved in the project.
Stephen explains, “When I initially received the brief from Eddie and Keith Nixon at Whale (Munster Simms Engineering Ltd), Eddie had been working extremely hard in developing the mechanical aspects of the product. He had made great steps in securing seven patents on his initial concept work, machining high-quality prototypes and had an excellent vision of how he felt the product should move forward. Eddie wanted to utilise the product design consultancy we provide to help carry him carry the project forward and to probable launch at METS 2007, the largest European Marine Industry Trade Show.”
In the following months, the project followed the design process model. The team examined the aesthetic appearance of the product; developed the 2D & 3D CAD design of each piece-part and also the considerations involved with Design for Manufacture and Design for Assembly.
The design data was tested at several stages with SLA and Vacuum Cast prototypes supplied by local, national and Far Eastern companies. Concurrently, work was ongoing with a Welsh company Logic Asia to source quotations from vendors and to design the tooling for manufactured parts
Patrick Hurst explains, “Whilst we outsource the manufacture of tooling the Far East, we are dedicated to bringing those tools back to Northern Ireland where we can competitively use our own in-house expertise to run the moulds, produce parts and assemble the finished product.”
The design of the finished product centres on a single “wand” design that integrates the hot and cold function inside the shower handle, with no external “taps” necessary. This also provides a very cost-effective solution, by reducing part cost and labour cost.
The handset can be supplied with either an Angled Holder or a Straight Holder, which has a very simple one-step install solution. Boat Manufacturers or individual customers can fit or retrofit the product by drilling a single aperture, and the finished product integrates seamlessly into the deck or transom of their boat.
In November 2007, the product was very well received by the industry at its European launch at METS 2007 in the Amsterdam RAI where it was short-listed for the prestigious DAME Award. The products US launch also saw it nominated for an NMMA Innovation Award at IBEX 2007 in Miami Beach, Florida.
Production work is now in the final stages and we hope that further collaboration will continue to bring success.
www.whalepumps.com/twist-revolution
