John from Newton Lighting Enterprises needed a custom solution for his soft lighting product line. John had an existing extrusion that he was using for his product but he wasn’t happy with it and wished it provided him with better features. We sat down with him and went over his requirements which included the ability to fit an existing plastic cap and existing plastic screen, have a flat internal surface for better LED mounting, and to allow for a bracket mount with an adjustable pivot. Once the redesign started, we worked closely with John and listened to his feedback to come up with the perfect design that hit all his criteria. During the design, we presented John with a bonus feature for his extrusion system, an extension system using pins which now allowed him to connect multiple extrusion pieces together and now create a lightning solution of unlimited lengths, something that his competition does not have! Once the design stage was finished, we created a set of plastic prototypes using our state of the art 3D printing system so John could hold his future product in his hands and provide us with feedback on it’s fit and function. After we’ve received his approval, we created the required manufacturing drawings for him and submitted them to our aluminum extrusion supplier to be manufactured in multiple colors and finishes. We also created a marketing flyer and a few high-def renders for him marketing team to help show off the product. John and ourselves are very happy the way the product turned out, you can now find this product offering on the NLE website.

Skills Needed

John’s project required a multi skilled approach to fulfill its requirements. The previous extrusion design had to be analyzed and reworked to meet the customer requests and the aluminum extrusion process requirements.  Prototypes were made to perform a hands on examination of fit and function. Drawings and 3D models were created to provide to the manufacturer for a production run. Brochures and other graphics material was created to help John with his product exposure and marketing.