BÖHME helped HOUE save the production of an injection-molded chair
The furniture company, HOUE, was ready to launch the FALK chair, which was made from plastic derived from household waste.
However, when the first chairs came from the factory, an unpleasant surprise awaited: The angles between the seat and the backrest were incorrect, and the chair's flexibility did not meet expectations.
The chair couldn't be sent to the market. "We were in a firefighting situation and urgently needed someone who could conduct the necessary analyses of what was wrong.
BÖHME stepped in and provided the calculations we needed to correct the error in the injection molding tool," recalls Pelle Gorm Hansen, product manager at HOUE.
Advanced Injection Molding Calculations
A production delay can mean a fatal mistiming of the market.
Therefore, Pelle Gorm Hansen does not want to find himself in the same situation again. "It's really expensive to be behind, as we were with the FALK chair. A tool for a molded chair easily costs 500,000 DKK. And if it doesn't work the first time, it's more or less starting over. Plus, there's the delay in the market. A mistake can delay the launch by up to a year," he explains.
That's why BÖHME is now involved in HOUE's design and development phase. BÖHME provides analyses of material quality, calculations of angles, flexibility, and all the other data necessary to build the unique tool in which the furniture will be molded.
Contact a Plastic Expert in the Design Phase
Collaborating with BÖHME allows Pelle Gorm Hansen to sleep better at night. He calls it "crucial" for a design company to have a plastic expert involved in the development phase, preferably from the design phase itself.
"Plastic is an extremely difficult material. For example, it can be very challenging to predict what will happen when the material dries, as we've learned," says the product manager, adding: "Plastic experts are generally very cautious about guaranteeing that the product coming out of the mold will be exactly what we wanted.
But we have had good experiences with BÖHME – they provide us with answers that we can directly use in the construction."
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