SYNTHE II
Cost Reduced Road Helmet
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Remove 25+% of FOB cost from original design while maintaining as much of the original aesthetic as possible
Limit new tooling needs where possible in favor of making modifications to existing tooling
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Rhino surface modeling and manipulation
Cost analysis skill development
Overseas vendor trip to asses current tooling for design constraint definition
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Project Goal: Remove as much cost from the FOB price of this helmet while preserving as much of the original aesthetics and features as possible
Panel Removal
The molded mesh panels and logo added graphic customization, but created MOQ bottlenecks and were comparatively expensive to similar components because of their low manufacturing run volumes. Additionally, the logo required adhesive bonding to the panel, and the panel a snap feature to in molded receiving component
By removing these parts and replacing them with a simple logo sticker, material usage and assembly complexity was reduced while MOQ bottlenecks were improved
Rear Bezel and Strapping Restructure
The rear of the helmet also required multiple injection molded components and a complex assembly method. A colored Giro logo was snapped to a mesh panel, which was then snapped to an ABS cap. This cap housed the retainers for the strapping system, which required routing through the helmet and fixation to the cap before the completed assembly was glued to the exterior of the foam liner
I replaced this complex system with a vaccum formed cap that could be fused directly to the foam during EPS molding, and a far less complex strapping system, improving both assembly time and quality consistency
Fit System Simplification
The final large cost driver was the rotational impact management system and fit system. The original helmet used a vacuum formed polycarbonate sheet with several assembly steps with additional snap components to bond the formed sheet with the fit system cradle
I simplified this by combining the fit system cradle and low-friction layer into one injection molded nylon part. An injection tool of this size was expensive, but had a quick ROI due to the lower material usage and assembly savings. Nine components were eliminated just from this change. Part of the challenge was to keep my modifications contained to the central EPS cavity core so only that piece of the cavity would need to be rebuilt