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Federal-Mogul Innovation Competition
Federal Mogul Design Challenge
A design competition that required us to use The Federal Mogul 2473 conductive fabric for designing.
Bright Ideas™ is a bulletin board with included push pins that light up when inserted into the board. The board is 24 inches wide by 18 inches tall, and includes a separate 9V DC adapter, and set of push pins. The Federal Mogul 2473 conductive fabric is used as the power source for the LEDs, allowing them to be plugged in anywhere on the surface to complete the circuit. The board will be marketed in the home office and small business retailer segment.
About Federal Mogul 2473 Conductive Fabric
Material Evaluation & Testing
Tinned Copper Wire
- High electrical conductivity.
- Low electric resistivity.
- Poor resistive heating capabilities!
PET multi/monofilaments
- Durable & lightweight.
Woven construction
- Strong.
- Electrically conductive in the X, Y and Z directions.
Resistance of multiple strands.
*measurements taken on 24 inch lengths.
Resistivity in X, Y, & Z test
6”x 1” Warp Direction – 0.1 Ω
1”x 6” Fill Direction - 0.3 Ω
1”x 1” Z Direction - 0.3 Ω
Product Opportunity
Erik Olovsson of Studio E.O
Initial quick sketches and 3D modelings were used to explore a variety of forms, features and embodiments of the product.
Product Opportunity #1
Anti-static Wrist Strap
- Conductive properties are used to safely ground people working on sensitive electronic equipment
Alligator clip
Rubber coated wire
Injection molded clip
Steel connector - clip
Steel connector - base
Injection molded base
Injection molded
base clip
Cloth cover
Aluminum armature wire
Federal Mogul conductive band
Enabling Technology
Market Analysis
•Electrostatic discharge (ESD) avoidance
–Total market ~$1.6 billion
* BBC Report PLS006E “Electrostatic Discharge Technologies”
** Dave Swenson, President - Affinity Static Control Consulting, L.L.C.
Competitors
Product Opportunity Gaps
•Consumer goods to manufacturing
–Sell to “Joe Computerguy” at Best Buy
–Outfit Apple’s entire manufacturing facility
•Wide price range
–$1.00 to $40.00
–
•Bland market offering
–Design features to stand out
Product Opportunity #2
“Idea Board” with LED push-pins
- Conductive properties are used to power special LED push-pins
Enabling Technology
Federal Mogul 2473D
Federal Mogul 2473D
Market Analysis
•Office Supply Stores
- Total market ~$20.0 billion
– ~$39 million bulletin board market
•Assuming 5% of “Other” sales
Competitors
Product Opportunity Gaps
•Novel feature among competitors
•Wide price range
–$10 minimum product entry, dependent on size
•Variable sales strategy
–Stand-alone consumer products
–Made-to-order office solutions
Final Design
The second product opportunity is selected by the final design to move forward.
Final model
The Bright Ideas™ Bulletin Board
•Bulletin board with proprietary push pins that light up.
•Uses Federal Mogul conductive material to supply power.
Two layers of 2473 fabric (2.5”x6” strips) with metal connectors taped to the ends. There is paper between them to keep them from touching. There are 3V of batteries with the + side connected to the top layer, the (-) connected to the bottom layer. When a multi-meter is placed across one of the layers the resistance reads around 0.6 Ohms. The voltage drop between the two layers is around 2.9V. When an LED is contacted across the two layers, the voltage drops to 2.7V. These measurements prove that the fabric is very conductive, although making adequate contact was kind of difficult. Using the fabric to carry electricity would be a good design choice. It also means that since the resistivity is low, it will not be a very good heat generator.
How it works
The Bright Ideas™ bulletin board is powered by a very simple electric circuit Two layers of Federal Mogul 2473 conductive fabric are laminated to sheet of polyethylene foam and are wired in a simple circuit with a single pole switch, and 5.5mm power socket. A power converter is used to turn the 120VAC power at the wall socket into 9V DC power, keeping the interior lamination at +9V, and the outer facing lamination at 0V. When a push pin is inserted into the board, the longer prong contacts the positive lamination and is insulated from the ground lamination. The short prong contacts the ground lamination, passing current through the series combination of a resistor and LED and completing the circuit.
Manufacturing
1. Apply spray adhesive and glue layers of FM2473 to polyethylene foam.
3. Attach switch and 5.5mm DC adapter jack to frame pieces and connect circuit.
2. Pull out drain wire leads.
4. Assemble remaining frame pieces, backing PE foam, and hardboard backing.
5. Snap frame pieces into hardboard backing.
6. Package Idea Board™ with DC adapter and 15 LED pins.
Business Case
Market Size
After extensive research, finding the market size of the office supply industry surfaced. We choose to focus on the specific category of office supplies because our targeted customer right out of production would be small business owners needing supplies for their offices. According to the pie chart featured, there is a breakdown of the different segments featured in the market. For our Bright Ideas board product, this shows opportunity for success in the market. With 54% of the market consisting of goods that are used up daily such as paper, printer ink, pens, paper clips, envelopes, etc., and technology holding 20% of the market (computers, printers, scanners), we saw this as an opportunity to show how our innovative bulletin board with light up pins fits into the two highest percentages of the market. Being that this market is worth over $100 billion annually, this gave us positive predictions that our product would be a successful new product in the market.
Target: Small Business Owners
Competitive Environment & Positioning
Taking into consideration what products are similar and have similar functions and features of our Bright Ideas board, we came up with a competitive environment and positioning map to visualize where our product stands compared to other leading existing products. We positioned Bright Ideas at the upper right section of the chart because we compared to a traditional corkboard, our board is very high tech and grabs attention through its light up push pins. Additionally, our product fills the gap to the market where there are already simple and basic forms of our product made (cork board) to a very complex computerized smart board. Our board stands alone in being the most interactive and high tech product on the market today to comparable/ similarly functioning products.
Bright Ideas™ Bulletin Board
•Bulletin board with LED push-pins
•Marketed to home office and small business owners
•Unique product in its competitive set
–High tech, Low Cost
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