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The timeline was extremely ambitious, but together with Idé-Pro, they succeeded in industrializing the key plastic parts, entering series production, and delivering the toilet to customers on time.
Harvest Moon is a Swedish design company developing water-free sanitation solutions for a regenerative lifestyle.
Injection moulded part for the LUNA toilet.
Before working with Idé-Pro, Harvest Moon had tested the LUNA toilet through prototype production and low-volume tooling, delivering around 50 units. The challenge was now to establish a scalable production setup and prepare 28 plastic parts for production within a few months.
Keeping production in the Nordics was important to Harvest Moon, to support their ambition of building a responsible and resilient supply chain with short lead times, close collaboration and good quality control. That is why they contacted Idé-Pro in Skive, Denmark.
With design for manufacturing (DFM), a tool shop and injection moulding under one roof, all processes are closely integrated, keeping flexibility and speed at their best. Harvest Moon experienced this first-hand:
"We saw how much can be achieved with well-designed aluminium tooling, when development, tooling and production work closely together."
Frida Rybo, Harvest Moon
Throughout the collaboration, we involved material suppliers to help Harvest Moon find the best possible recycled material for LUNA. We assisted with aluminium tooling, first-off-tool samples, production preparation, injection moulding and ensured an excellent surface finish, which was important for a design-driven company like Harvest Moon.
Harvest Moon associated aluminium tooling mainly with prototype and low-volume production, and an initial concern was whether it would remain cost-competitive at higher production volumes. Idé-Pro challenged that perception and chose aluminium tooling for series production, where steel tooling is traditionally the standard.
"Idé-Pro demonstrated that aluminium tooling can offer a strong combination of low initial investment, short lead times and competitive part prices."
Jonas Mattsson, Harvest Moon
Aluminium tools are faster to manufacture than steel tools. This meant we could quickly manufacture 24 aluminium tools, four of them with two cavities, in our tool shop and produce the 28 parts for the LUNA toilet by injection moulding.
With a solution-oriented and transparent approach throughout the project, our team challenged designs, contributed valuable DFM input and helped make better decisions from a production perspective.
"Idé-Pro's ability to combine engineering competence, tooling expertise and production capabilities, within an extremely demanding timeline, was impressive."
Frida
According to Harvest Moon, Idé-Pro was a supplier beyond the ordinary. Jonas continues:
"Idé-Pro acted as a true development and industrialization partner, rather than just a supplier."
The result of the collaboration was that Harvest Moon could deliver LUNA to their customers within the planned timeframe.
Discover Harvest Moon and their solutions here
Harvest Moon's LUNA toilet.
Many companies face the same challenge as Harvest Moon and must move from prototype phase to series production in a short time. Send us your 3D file and together we will find the fastest way to production through injection moulding, high-pressure die casting or EPS/EPP.