New Success Story: Waste Baler Redesign, Industrialization and Manufacturing
Challenge
Our client was facing significant problems with their existing waste baler on the market. The machine was flawed in both functionality and usability, and its selling price was not competitive enough.
The main objectives were clear:
- Improve the quality and usability of the machine.
- Reduce the cost of the assembly to reach a competitive price.
Solution
Smarmec addressed these challenges with a strategic approach in three key areas:
- Mechanical Components Redesign:
- We solved robustness and usability issues of the previous design.
- We optimized the design to reduce costs without compromising quality, even improving it.
- We implement a continuous improvement process with several prototyping phases to achieve a robust and cost-effective design.
- Manufacturing Cost Optimization:
- We manufactured a part of the machine in our Kunshan, China plant, taking advantage of lower material and labor costs.
- We produced the machine body in Zamudio, Spain, to avoid high transportation costs.
- We integrate and validate the subassemblies in Spain before shipping the complete machine to the customer.
- Purchasing Strategy:
- Our purchasing team in China and Spain worked to identify functional and feature-rich components similar to the originals, but at a more competitive price.
Results
The project resulted in a machine that meets the expected quality and cost standards. The collaboration between our plants in China and Spain was crucial to achieve the target price without compromising the quality and robustness of the product.
