G-wax: a vending machine for hair gel

Diederick Vegers of http://www.g-wax.nl had spotted a need in the market: a vending machine for hair gel.

The client worked with an industrial designer in the Netherlands to develop nice looking a artist’s impression of the exterior, and 3D CAD of the inside components, most of them in plastic. He then came to Titoma and asked us to quote on making up to 5000 units.

A lot of the CAD files we receive are not necessarily optimized for manufacturing, let alone for manufacturing in Asia. So instead of just quoting him on the provided 3D CAD model Titoma discussed the project with a very experienced vending machine manufacturer in Taiwan (we of course only showed the design after the vendor has signed our NDA).

The big advantage of Taiwan over China is that in Taiwan the companies have a lot more experience, and are therefore much better able to give good advice for new product development. If you speak the language of course.

In this case the company recommended us to switch from one big 3 liter tank of gel to vending sachets, because a pump system would easily get clogged up if there would be no sales for a week.

So basically instead of inventing a whole new machine concept, which would have taken a lot of prototyping and tweaking to get right, we made an adaptation of their condom vending machine instead. He also recommended making the complete system out of metal, which is more vandal proof and generally longer lasting, and has the big advantage that no expensive plastic injection moulds need to be made, so it was much quicker and cheaper to manufacture a pilot run of 100 units. Titoma interfaced extensively between client and factory to see how we could implement his original design concept as faithfully as possible without spending too much money.

Making smart use of existing product platforms is an important part of Titoma’s Design For Asian Manufacturing ™ Process.

Because we now had to make small portions of gel in plastic in a printed carton cover Titoma contracted a local factory to make the gel according to client’s fruity recipe, and package it.

Please contact Case Engelen at Titoma for more information, a quick quote, or other inquiries:

Email: G-wax: a vending machine for hair gel - Design & Manufacturing in Taiwan

Telephone +886 2 2727 2089