Garlic Mincer Proposal

Prepared for: Walter Herbst & Keith Jaffee, Design Lab Home
Prepared by: Conor O’Neill, Evan Witort, Jay Valdillez, Jonathan Shenkman,
Milan Samuel
Section 14, Team 4
Northwestern University, Design Thinking & Communication II
Professor Walter Herbst & Professor Jeanne Herrick
June 11, 2015
1
Table of Contents
1.0
Executive Summary………………………….………….…………………………………..3
2.0
Introduction………………………………………………..…………..…….………..….…4
3.0
Users and Design Requirements……………..……….…………….…………………….5
4.0
5.0
3.1
Primary Users…………..…………….….….….…………………………..……….5
3.2
Stakeholders……………………….………….…………………….………………5
3.3
Requirements for Mincer..……………….…………………………………………5
Design Concept and Rationale…………….……………………….……………………..7
4.1
Overview…………………………………..……………………………………..….7
4.2
Multiple Blades..……………………….….…………………….……………..……8
4.3
Downward Motion..……………………….……………………….………………..9
4.4
Ergonomic Handle…..……………….…………………………..…….………..…10
4.5
Head……………………………………………………….………….….…………11
Future Recommendations………..…………………………………………….…………12
5.1
Conduct More Testing……………..……………………………..………..……..12
5.2
Line Extension……………..…………..…..……………………………..………..12
5.3
Patent Research……………….………..…..…………………………..………….12
6.0
Conclusion……………………………….……..………………………….……………….13
7.0
References………………..……….…………..………………….…………..…………….14
8.0
Appendix………………………………………………………………….…….………….15
A
Project Definition………………………………..………………………..……….15
B
Client Interview Summary..………….….…….……………………….………….16
C
Background Research……..…………….……..……………..…..….…………..19
D
User Observation Summary…..………..……………………………..………….24
E
Mockup Designs………….…………………………………………..……………25
F
Testing Feedback……….…….……….…………………..……..……………….26
G
FMEA Report……………………………….……………….………………………27
H
Bill of Materials…………….………….…..……………….………..…………….28
I
Instructions for Manufacture…………………………..……………………..…. 29
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1.0 Executive Summary
Mincing garlic by hand is a slow and messy process, and current “mincers” on the
market leave your favorite herb squished, mushy, and under-flavored.
Existing products aim to replace the knife with presses, rollers, and even wire. Despite
basic functionality of each design, they reduce the quality of the final product, are unintuitive to
use, and are tedious to clean. Our clients, Walter Herbst and Keith Jaffee, have asked for a
housewares product that fills a “white space” in the market. We have decided that there is
definitely a need for a new garlic mincer that is both aesthetically pleasing and highly
functional.
minz: A simple tool used to mince garlic
easily and efficiently.
Its unique yet knife-like shape provides
for quick and simple garlic mincing. The multiple blade
design provides for clean cuts without crushing as well as painless cleaning.
Primary Features:
MULTIPLE BLADES: 6 CUTS WITH 1
STROKE
The multiple blade design can efficiently
cut garlic with one-sixth the effort. The
spacing between blades provides for
uniform cuts every time.
DOWNWARD MOTION: FAMILIAR USE
The downward motion of the mincer
creates a familiar knife feeling accessible for
any user.
ERGONOMIC HANDLE: COMFORTABLE TO USE
The ergonomic handle provides a comfortable grip for increased
control of mincing.
HEAD: PEELING FEATURE
The head of the mincer in which all of the blades are attached to also serves
as a tool to peel garlic.
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2.0 Introduction
Our team was tasked by Keith Jaffee and Walter Herbst of Design Lab Home
(DLH) to create a product to fill potential “white space” in the housewares industry. In
fact, the housewares industry generates $70 billion annually in the United States alone.
Nearly all interviewed potential clients complained first and most frequently about
garlic presses, even when unprompted. This proved to us the potential white space
profits involved in garlic mincer sales.
At this time, there is no professional cooking product that easily minces garlic
without crushing the garlic and releasing the vital juices. Presses, rolling mincers, and
hinged choppers are met with general disdain, as reported by users. When we
interviewed chefs and amateur cooks alike, it was common to hear things such as, “I
don’t ever use a garlic press because they’re so inefficient.”
The garlic mincer that our team designed relieves the cumbersome nature of
mincing garlic, while simultaneously keeping the juices and flavor of the garlic intact.
Our custom blades, combined with an ergonomic grip, flat head, and natural cutting
motion provide a familiar and quick experience cutting garlic. The design of the
product also allows for simple and low cost manufacturing.
The rest of the proposal will entail the potential market and users, various
attributes and requirements of our design, and the potential recommendations that we
would suggest if our product were to move forward.
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3.0 Users & Requirements
3.1 Primary Users
Minz would appeal to a culinary novice or the average household cook. These users
share a desire for top-notch minced garlic, but may not be able to fulfill this desire because
of a lack of time, skills, or resources. Our efficient, multi-blade garlic mincer design satisfies
this desire without sacrificing convenience or speed.
3.2 Stakeholders
Our clients, Keith Jaffee and Walter Herbst (Design Lab Home) would be primary
stakeholders as our design fulfills their request for a “white space” housewares product.
Retailers such as Williams-Sonoma, Crate & Barrel, Bed Bath & Beyond, and others
are interested in selling successful kitchen products—such as garlic mincers—to their
customers.
Petra, Bradshaw International, and HDI Housewares are just a few examples of
distributors that would be interested in purchasing the garlic mincer unit to sell to
retailers.
The International Housewares Shippers Association—among other shippers—would
be responsible for the transportation of the goods between manufacturing and retail
locations.
3.3 Design Requirements for Mincer
3.3.1 Multiple Blades
The most crucial component of the design is that multiple blades be incorporated
into the head of the mincer. This will produce a similar effect to the traditional single-knife
method, but will require less that one-sixth as many strokes--as there are six blades--to
produce the same amount of minced garlic. The use of several blades also eliminates the
need for fine knife skills.
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3.3.2 Rocking Motion
The mincer must use a rocking motion to cut the garlic. This will ensure innate user
familiarity with the product and maximize ease of use, as well as slice more cleanly than
than straight down would.
3.3.3 Peeling
Current mincers do not have efficient garlic peelers. Our mincer must have a
peeling feature in order to increase ease of use.
3.3.4 Easy Cleaning
Easy cleaning is one of the differentiating improvements of this design over other
mincer designs. The lack of moving parts, simple 90° angles, stainless steel blades, and
intended frame-blade shape all allow for maximum water and brush accessibility.
3.3.5 General Requirements
The final product should have a low manufacturing cost (20% of retail cost) so
that it can sell for under $20 (see Appendix A).
While the final product is meant to efficiently mince garlic, the design should
also be aesthetically pleasing and easily patentable.
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4.0 Design Concepts & Rationale
4.1
Overview
In designing minz we decided it best to incorporate aspects of mincing that
both chefs and average home kitchen users alike know and love. Though the mincer
features multiple blades, it does still keep the familiar rolling motion that a kitchen knife
provides because of the ergonomic handle and downward force—key aspects that
allow minz to efficiently slice through garlic. Our design is truly unlike any other, and
six cuts above the rest. A normal blade cutting garlic utilizes a rocking motion to
precisely slice the garlic repeatedly until it can be classified as minced. This slicing is
both labor and skill intensive, but the minz transforms the mincing process into a
simple task. It utilizes a head with 6 finely sharpened blades to allow the minz to
functionally achieve 6 slices in a single rocking motion. The increase in blades
decreases both the time and skill necessary to properly mince garlic, while the rocking
based cutting motion ensures minced, not mashed garlic.
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4.2
MULTIPLE BLADES: 6 Cuts with 1 Stroke
Minz features six stainless steel blades of equal distance from each other, placed
on one head frame made of glass-filled nylon. These blades feature a similar shape to
existing kitchen knives on the market, but exist on a slightly smaller scale.
RATIONALE: Fewer Strokes Necessary to Cut
Our design incorporated multiple blades because they allow for fewer strokes,
and less time and effort. We recognized that two of the key flaws with the current
preferred method of mincing, kitchen knives, are that they require a significant amount
of time and semi-advanced knife skills in order to achieve the ideal fine cuts. After
looking into the average amount of slices needed to slice a garlic clove and
considering design symmetry, we decided that six would be the optimal number of
blades for our mincer. Because there are six blades instead of one, minz can efficiently
cut garlic with 1/6 the effort and time. Furthermore, the equal distance between each
of the blades allows for more uniformity of the cuts as the size of garlic pieces does
truly affect overall flavor of the meal being prepared.
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4.3
DOWNWARD MOTION: Familiar Use
The use of minz requires the familiar downward motion that is used when slicing
with a typical kitchen knife. Simply put, our mincer only requires a
small flick of the wrist in order to make cuts.
RATIONALE: Similar to Kitchen Knife
After researching the issues with current mincers are presses, we found that
these products mash and squeeze garlic, rather than slicing. This causes the release of
valued garlic flavor, negatively affected the overall taste of the food being prepared.
Chefs, and those who value freshly minced garlic, use kitchen knives in order to
preserve garlic flavor. Because of the incorporation of this familiar rolling motion, our
product minces quickly but still keeps that tasty garlic flavor.
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4.4
ERGONOMIC HANDLE: Comfortable to Use
Minz features an ergonomic, thermoplastic rubber handle that is similar to an
OXO grip. This handle differs from that of a typical kitchen knife, but allows for
increased ease of use.
RATIONALE: Supports With of Head While Maintaining Comfortability
Because of the width of the head, we knew that we would have to look beyond
current knife grips. The geometry of our design requires a thicker and stronger grip to
support the volume of the head. Kitchen utensil consumers seem to show a strong
preference for grips made by OXO. We incorporated a flexible rubber handle that is
similar to OXO grips but unique to our design.
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4.5 HEAD: Peeling Feature
The glass-filled nylon head of the garlic mincer has slits to hold the blades in
place. Additionally, the other side can be hit against a clove of garlic to quickly break
the shell..
RATIONALE: Holds Blades and Peels Garlic
We needed a strong material that could hold the blades of the mincer in place.
We also wanted a material that was light enough so the weight of the head did not feel
too front-heavy. The other side of the head doubles as a tool to peel garlic. When the
user hits it against a clove, the shell wears away, allowing for an easier peel.
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5.0 Future Recommendations
5.1 Conduct More Testing
Validation testing would be conducted to ensure that consumers would
purchase the product.
Additional user testing would allow the best possible method for cleaning the
mincer to be developed. Currently, there is not sufficient testing to determine what the
best method of cleaning will be, so we will develop the optimal method based on
those user testing points.
Long performance testing is necessary to determine what the life span of the
garlic mincers are to make production estimates on a larger scale in the future. Minz
may have a limited life span because eventually the blades will dull, though we cannot
yet determine how long this span will be.
5.2 Line Extension
We have several ideas for future additions to our design. In the future, we could
design multiple blade head frames with differing blade configurations to allow for
different sized cuts. This could allow our mincer to expand beyond garlic to other fruits,
vegetables, and herbs.
As mentioned earlier, we could also design a cleaning tool to sell alongside the
mincer.
For added safety, we could also design rubber blade protectors to go alongside
the blades. The protectors would eliminate the amount of contact with the sharp
blades, increasing the overall safety of the product.
5.3 Patent Research
Finally, we would have to look into current design patents on the market
involving kitchen utensils to see if there are any limitations to producing and
manufacturing our product for wholesale. The existence of patents for garlic presses,
hinged-blade mincers, and blade plurality confirm that minz is a reasonable subject
matter. While comparable designs exist for each individual aspect of our design, none
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have integrated the simplicity of non-hinged bladed mincing with the familiarity of a
downward, rocking motion. Despite widespread annoyance and dissatisfaction with
garlic presses, they remain the norm in modern machinated mincing. However, a lack
of patents for devices with multiple fixed blades indicates that the ideology behind
minz is fresh enough to have escaped previous development. As demonstrated in our
videos, minz allows amateurs and professionals alike to mince garlic into uniform,
flavorful bits in less than one-sixth the number of strokes. From the survey results it is
clear that such an invention would generate significant market interest and has yet to
be resolved in an effective and reasonable manner
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6.0 Conclusion
Minz is a functional utensil that can mince garlic both quickly and easily. The
design of the the product accomplishes these tasks with:
• Six evenly-spaced stainless steel blades for multiple cuts with one stroke
• A familiar blade shape for easy use
• An ergonomic and comfortable grip handle for controlled cuts
No longer will mincing garlic be a drawn-out hassle. Minz eliminates the
problems of current garlic mincers on the market, and instead improves the task of
mincing garlic by combining clean knife cuts with efficiency and accuracy in each
stroke. Our mincer can be manufactured using insert molding and produced at a low
cost as a result. An investment in minz has surveyed market potential and the ability
to fill white space in the market for garlic mincers.
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7.0 References
"The 3 Best Ways to Mince Garlic: The Kitchn." YouTube. The Kitchn, 8 Dec. 2014.
Web. 07 June 2015.
"Cooking School: How To Mince Garlic... Fast." YouTube. America's Test Kitchen, 29
May 2012. Web. 07 June 2015.
"Equipment Review: Best Garlic Press." YouTube. America's Test Kitchen, 28 Oct. 2010.
Web. 07 June 2015.
"Household Appliances - Global Market Demand | Forecast 2006-2013." Statista.
Statista, 2014. Web. 07 June 2015.
"Kitchen Secrets: How to Mince Garlic." YouTube. Foodista, 3 Aug. 2014. Web. 07
June 2015.
Leslie Bockenstette. "Garlic Press vs Chef Knife." YouTube. Leslie Bockenstette, 22 Oct.
2012. Web. 07 June 2015.
Logel, Sara. "Complete Breakdown of Housewares Category Share Estimates."
Hardware Retailing Magazine. N.p., 12 Feb. 2015. Web. 07 June 2015.
"News Release." American Adults Are Choosing Healthier Foods, Consuming Healthier
Diets. United States Department of Agriculture, 16 Jan. 2014. Web. 07 June
2015.
Oliver, Jamie. "Jamie Oliver Talks You through Preparing Garlic." YouTube. Jamie
Oliver, 27 Aug. 2010. Web. 07 June 2015.
"Review of the Rosle 12782 Garlic Press." YouTube. Ureviews, 26 Jan. 2013. Web. 07
June 2015.
Thao, Vang. "Garlic Press from China." YouTube. Vang Thao, 26 Jan. 2015. Web. 07
June 2015.
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Appendix A: Project Definition
Project Name: White Space
Client: DLh (Design Lab Home): Keith Jaffee, founder of Focus Products, and Walter
Herbst of Herbst Produkt
Team Members: Conor O’Neill, Evan Witort, Jay Valdillez, Jonathan Shenkman, Milan
Samuel
Date: April 14, 2015
Version: Three
Mission Statement: To design garlic mincer that is user-friendly, aesthetically pleasing,
and highly marketable as a white space product.
Project Deliverables:
• Prototype
• Poster/Presentation
Constraints:
• Deadline: June 11, 2015
• Must be a housewares product
• Must cost roughly 20% of retail price to produce, must have retail price under
$49
• Must be patentable
Primary Users:
• Professional chef
• Household consumer
Stakeholders:
• DLh
• Crate & Barrel
• Bed, Bath, & Beyond
• Williams-Sonoma
16
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Appendix B: Client Interview Summary
This appendix summarizes the information presented in an interview with our
client Walter Herbst, partner of Herbst Produkt. The interview took place on Thursday,
April 2nd, 2015 at 12:30 PM. This meeting was made in order to provide a greater
understanding of how product designs can best fill white space and how to achieve
these designs. Mr. Herbst met with a group of 2 students from our design team in the
Ford building at Northwestern University to answer any questions. This appendix
covers the information presented regarding methods to lead us to an effective design,
examples of strong design work, requirements for the design, and what key aspects
create a successful product
How to Achieve an Effective Design
Mr. Herbst says that there are two primary ways to look generate ideas for new designs:
• Questioning everything leads to strong design ideas
• Simple questions tend to lead to stronger results by questioning the
fundamental ideas behind a product. Taking a problem to the highest level
of simplicity is an important tool
• Going to stores and reviewing products available currently on the market can be
a strong way to stimulate ideas for new designs
• When visiting stores and looking at products, one way to learn more about
the market is to ask customers as they are leaving the store what they
bought and why. This way they can share important consumer information
about what they value in a design and what they were lacking in their
household before their purchase
• Borrowing ideas from pre-existing products is the basis for almost every
design
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Examples of Strong Design Work
Mr. Herbst lists several examples of stores and products that exemplify designs worth
looking at.
• Stores
• Joseph Joseph
• A great example of creative design work to fill in white space
• Bed Bath and Beyond
• Crate and Barrel
• Williams-Sonoma
• OXO Good Grips
• Sam Farber founded this company when his wife complained of not
being able to grip her potato peeler due to her arthritis. He created a
universal product to solve the problem his wife discovered by creating a
grip for products that can help arthritis patients with all sorts of utensils
• Products
• Pressure based baby gate
• One graduate design team designed a baby gate that can be set up in
under a minute by using a new type of attachment mechanism
• Collapsable whisk
• This product is one of the innovations made by Joseph Joseph
Design Requirements and Guidelines
• Manufacturing costs should be 20% of retail
• Prototype cost does not matter
• Construction of the final product will be streamlined and much cheaper
than prototype cost
• Make sure the design is patentable
• It can be distinguishable by design and/or function. Both are not necessary
• The design must be completed by the final deliverables date
• It does not matter how mechanically complex the design is or how long it
will actually take to construct. The final prototype must be ready by the
19
final deliverables date. A Gantt chart is a very useful tool for planning to
ensure that we reach production by this date
• Mr. Herbst would like to be contacted every other week with design updates
Aspects of a Successful Product
• Under $49
• Due to the price elasticity of many household products, the biggest successes
come with products under $49
• Products that cost too much are a much more expensive investment and involve
greater risk because of this
• Targeting a specific market is very helpful
• Mr. Herbst would be hard pressed to find a market in the household goods
sector that is too small
• 30% of customers should say they love the product
• Not everyone has to like it though
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Appendix C: Background Research
Our initial research consisted of learning more about background of the
concepts included in housewares product design. This project involves designing a
new, innovative product for a certain task in the kitchen or creating a product that
thrives in the market because of its “whitespace” marketability. In fact, the global
market for housewares products in general last year was around $300 billion. We
researched problems and inconveniences people had in the kitchen, why people used
certain products in the kitchen, and different solutions people had come up with to
solve those problems and inconveniences in the kitchen.
Problems and Inconveniences:
We talked to potential clients in our families, friends and students around
Northwestern, to determine which products they loathe the most when it comes to
cooking in the kitchen. We then sent out a survey to determine, categorically via time
spent in the kitchen, which products people dislike the most in the kitchen.
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Why People Use Certain Utensils in the Kitchen:
We then talked to chefs and the potential clients and asked why people used
certain utensils, such as knives or ice cream scoops, to perform tasks and not the
others. The results were almost universal: people want simple, trusted designs. If a
utensil has too many components, they will be less likely to be used.
Alternatives:
We then researched what people had come up with to solve different problems
in the kitchen. We looked at thisiswhyimbroke.com as well as the mainstream
companies such as Bed Bath and Beyond, Target, Sears, Joseph Joseph and many
others to find out which product markets they seemed to have a good handle on as
well as pricing for kitchen products.
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Appendix D: User Observation Summary
We conducted user observation on April 9th at the Witort family household,
specifically focusing on shadowing Chef Ryan Stewart. The main goals for our
observation are to:
• Understand common limitations in general dinner preparation and clean-up
operations
• Find out common complaints from daily operation in the kitchen
• Observe any unnecessary or possible tasks to improve upon in the kitchen
Start time: 1:19 pm
Introduction:
Hi I’m Evan Witort and these are my teammates, Jonathan Shenkman, Jay
Valdillez, Milan Samuel, and Conor O’Neill. We are Northwestern students enrolled in
a Design Thinking and Communication course. Our team is looking to improve upon
daily household operations by simply creating a new design for a household product to
make operations simpler. If possible, we would like to observe your tasks in preparing,
eating, and cleaning up dinner in the house. Also, do we have your permission to
record these tasks using a video recording? We will be recording and observing your
operational tasks through the night and will review them to find any possible rooms for
improvement within your routine. We would like to ask that though we will be
observing you, we hope that you will act as regularly as possible, so we can have
accurate observations. Do you have any questions before we begin?
Background Information:
Before we begin, we have a couple questions that might help frame our
observations:
• Are there any specific tasks that you find particularly cumbersome?
• Sponging
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• Cleaning fridge radiator
• Cleaning Strainer
• Hood cleaner
• What is your least favorite part of your nightly routine that we will be observing?
• Icing bags
• What is the most recent household product you have purchased and why?
• Lime squeezer
Task Breakdown:
• Dinner preparation
• Holds knife with index finger
• Comment on flat whisk “wouldn’t last very long in a kitchen”
• Stuff needs to be durable, lots of temperature change
• Used a knife that wasn’t meant for cutting shrimp
• Metal on knife is softer, easier to re-sharpen (unlike more expensive,
notably German, knives)
• Scoops seeds from cantaloupe with spoon upside down, index finger again
holding for support
• Saran wrap cutter is “most dangerous edge in the kitchen”
• Same knife for cutting mango as shrimp and cantaloupe (really only need
one knife)
• When cutting fruit, holds on to peel until he reaches the bottom
• Does all knife work (cutting, chopping, etc.) at the same time.
• Micro-plane: hard to clean (bent sides, small holes, fibrous ingredients get
caught and are stringy)
• Washes hands over 100x a day
• Spice cabinet: unnecessary time finding supplies
• Colanders- things get stuck, hard to wash
• Big fan of copper pots (heavy, hard to burn things in)
• Garlic press
• Stuff squirts out sides
• Garlic has a bunch of cells, press crushes cells and causes garlic to go
bad
24
• Better to cut
• Chops garlic with bigger knife because it makes a rocking motion when
cutting
• Likes wood cutting board
• Use a rocking motion when cutting
• Plastic board: knife has tendency to jump around (i.e. less control)
• Serving dinner
• Eating dinner
• Salad, main course, dessert
• Clearing of the dishes and table
• Cleaning the dishes
• Any additional cleaning up following dinner
Thing to Observe:
• What task had the most number of steps?
• Shopping
• Which part of the routine took the most amount of time
• Why is the product being used the way it is?
• Could the use of an additional of different product simplify this task?
• Task that requires the most effort
• Any physical cues about unhappiness or frustration with a task
Follow-up Questions:
• Which task you completed tonight was your least favorite?
• Which task completed was your favorite?
• Were there any general improvements you would like to see in your kitchen?
• Was there anything you forgot to do tonight?
End time: 2:30 pm
Things to bring:
• Self
• Recording device
25
Appendix E: Mockup Designs
26
Appendix F: Testing Feedback
Engineering Honor’s Society Feedback
• Garlic Mincer
• Could revisit the crosshatch blade configuration
• Another person said the crosshatch is unnecessary and more difficult to
clean
• Could make retractable blades to allow the garlic to easily be cleaned out
• We could make a hinged platform around the blades to clear the garlic
• The handles should be more ergonomic
• Handles should have an intuitive grip
• Look into making the mincer smaller
• Address concerns about the garlic staying in place
27
Appendix G: FMEA Report
28
Appendix H: Bill of Materials
29
Appendix I: Instructions for Manufacture
The following materials and tools will be necessary for manufacturing minz:
• Stainless Steel
• Sorbothane Polymer
• Glass-filled Nylon
• Grounds for Manufacturing
• Human Labor
• Double-Shot Injection Molding Machine
• Garlic Mincer Design Mold
Instructions for Constructing Minz:
Creating the Blades:
1.
Blank the blades from a sheet of 1/32” stainless steel metal in order to form the
shape of the blades. The blades must be 2” long and have an exposed height
of 1” above the mincer head.
2.
Hand sharpen each blade until it reaches cutting quality for the mincer (Figure 1)
Figure 1: Hand sharpened mincer blades
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Insert-Molding the Blades:
3.
The six blades will be held in place while the core and head of the mincer are
plastic injection insert molded around it. Glass-filled nylon will be used to
maximize the strength of the mincer core.
Figure 2: Thermoplastic polymer grip
Double-Shot Molding:
4.
Double shot injection mold the mincer handle in order to surround the
glass-filled base with a soft grippy handle. This handle will resemble one
produced by OXO good grips and will be made of a sorbothane polymer. The
polymer ensures an ergonomic grip and will be made of a thermoplastic material
(Figure 2).
31