onegreen Home Dispensing System Adam Baker // 2016 IHA Student Submission
1concept
One. Green. Solution.
Problem: Household cleaning and personal care products are hard to organize, creating frustration, waste, and mess.
The concept for the Onegreen system originated when I was in the shower. I noticed how poorly organized and messy my personal care products were, as well as my roommates’. I figured, there has to be a better solution. Immediately, I thought of soap dispensers. They’re neat, refillable, and out of the way. Why couldn’t these work in a home? And couldn’t they also work in the kitchen? Or laundry room? Then, I did some experiments.
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It took nearly less time to do cleaning tasks when I wasn’t running up and down stairs searching for cleaning supplies. It took me significantly less time to find my personal care products in the shower when they were isolated from my roommates’ products. Also, I would often discover cleaning products that were old and wasted, because they had been pushed aside or lost.
This seemed to prove my point. I did some research; the primary concern with commercial soap dispensers is bacteria and contamination. Ironic. Automatic dispensers are more effective at reducing this, yet they still fail to eliminate it completely, and are often unreliable.
After this research, I began ideation.
01 Pantry 02 Bathroom 03 Laundry room
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2ideation
Simple. Sleek. Efficient.
Simplicity was key in maintaining the concept. I needed the product to perform easily for all different age and ability levels. Because of these things, I decided on a rectangular form, with some sharp angles to increase interest.
There are three primary parts to this concept: 01 Base 02 Canister 03 Wall mount The base serves as the platform and houses any components that the features require. The canister houses the product that the user wishes to use in a specific environment (shampoo, detergent, soap). The wall mount had to be simple enough to mount with adhesive or with screws. These three would work together to create a sleek, simple, and efficient form. After this step, I began refining my design.
3refinement
Dimensions. Materials. Manufacturing. The refining process was simple. I needed to nail down dimensions for each component and begin determining materials and manufacturing techniques.
Dimensions: L W H Base 6.5in 4.5in 3.5in Canister 6in 4in 5in Wall Mount 0.85in 2in 2in Materials would includes HDPE (fully recycled and recyclable) for the base and wall mount. The canister materials would be determined by the corporations that made the shampoos, detergents, and other liquids. The ideal purpose of this product is to simplify the use of other products and reduce waste overall, so using recycled and recyclable high-density plastics seemed to be the best solution.
Manufacturing processes would be relatively standard-the base and wall mount would be injection molded, whereas the canisters would likely be blow-molded.
From this point, I began finalizing the design.
4final
One. Great. Solution. The product became much thinner than the original concept sketches, showing how the idea developed and the concept kept driving towards efficiency. The final solution is sleek, interesting, and overall a very strong concept. The large button on the front dispenses the liquid inside, as well as seals the product in when it is not needed. This can be a very versatile product, used in multiple areas in the home to unify the cleaning experience. Final features: This product has a few key features that many consumers would find necessary. The first would be a level-sensing technology that uses a basic sensor to determine how much liquid is left in the canister. This would be located in the base and would be powered by a standard or rechargeable battery. Three green lights would indicate the level of the product inside. The second feature would be mobility. The base would be removable from the wall mount so that canisters could be easily inserted, or the dispenser could be carried around if needed. Canisters could even include their own handle. Thirdly, an important feature is modularity. The unit comes individually, and others can simply be added on if needed. Multi-unit wall mounts could be sold separately for ease of installation. After this, I looked at product implementation.
5implementation
Packaging. Products. Marketing.
Large manufacturers and product producers could easily adapt to a new system like this. The canisters would be a universal design, and could be very quickly developed. The market for the product would be a younger generation interested in technology and simplicity. Packaging would be simple-a raw cardboard box with the logo and some general information on the product. Products such as Tide速 detergent, Head & Shoulders速 shampoo, and Softsoap速 could all utilize this system to improve user experience.
Overall, this product should improve the user experience of using cleaning and personal care products. It simplifies and unifies these products into a single system, reducing manufacturing costs, waste, and frustration.
Time to go green with onegreen!
6thanks
Very. Very. Much.
Thank you for your time and consideration. I’ve enjoyed this project immensely, and hope you have found it interesting as well. I would greatly appreciate any and all feedback you might have!
Adam Baker Cedarville University / ICC Senior / Industrial Design atbaker@cedarville.edu 585-217-1258