Enabling Home Product Testing for Kimberly-Clark Professional

Organization: Kimberly-Clark Professional

Role: Co-op on Dispenser R&D Team

Timeline: May 2020 – Dec. 2020

Challenge:
My team at Kimberly-Clark Professional was developing a new line of paper towel dispensers when the COVID-19 pandemic stopped in-office product testing. I was tasked with producing a novel tool to perform product reliability & usability testing from home during the pandemic.

Result & Impact:
My teammates were able to continue rigorously testing dispenser product prototypes from home with peace of mind that neither prototype nor test setup would present a hazard to kids and other family members in the home.

Method:
I conducted needfinding with my teammates, sketched and iteratively prototyped concepts with team feedback, and produced a final working model with help from SolidWorks CAD modelling and 80/20 made-to-order aluminum parts.

I interviewed my 11 teammates remotely to understand their current context of use and pain points. Their needs translated directly into guiding criteria for brainstorming:

1. Provide realistic mounting surface
2. Prevent injury to young kids/family
3. Hide work out of sight between tests

Outside of my teammates’ needs, the test methods required for a product to pass its criteria for success included installation at the correct height on realistic mounting surfaces.

With remote sketch review sessions, my team and I settled on the “steamer trunk” design to carry forward into prototyping.

I built the prototypes to prompt realistic feedback from my teammates about the size of the fixture, and whether it would fit in their homes.

Many of my teammates lived with young kids in the home, so I designed and tested prototypes with tip safety for kids in mind.

A plywood model helped me rapidly test the experience of setting up the tool for a typical dispenser durability test at home.

Once my teammates were comfortable with the shape and size of the fixture, I needed to make sure we could actually build it.

I assembled a CAD model of the fixture using SolidWorks and parts from McMaster-Carr and 80-20 available online.

The CAD model allowed me to compare the cost of the assembly using different components, and I cut the overall parts cost by over $1000 by adjusting material and component choices.

Once the bill of materials was finalized, I ordered the parts and built the fixture. After some testing and modification, it was ready to support dispenser testing!

In addition to shipping a working model of the test fixture to my teammates, I provided detailed assembly instructions and a full parts list so teammates could reproduce the test fixture if needed.

All parts were available online, and assembly only required standard and metric hex drivers and some time.

The ICON line of dispensers was released by Kimberly-Clark Professional in 2022. Since then, the line has gone on to win the iF Design Award and Good Design Award, among others.

When the team eventually returned back to the office, the Home Test Setup found a new home as a mobile, customizable extension of the product testing lab on-site.

Image Source: www.kcprofessional.com