Design for productivity and branding in the food sector
Design-People was tasked with improving Marel's salmon processing machine to increase efficiency and production output. Improving the salmon processing machine by conducting research, analyzing the existing machine, using the latest design technologies, and collaborating with Marel. The updated machine increased efficiency and production output was user-friendly, and received positive feedback, contributing to Marel's success in the industry and Design People's reputation as a provider of innovative design solutions.
We started the journey with a co-creation workshop with the Marel team – focusing on the product architecture and defining which zones of the product require access by whom, when and why. The close collaboration between design-people and the Marel team was rewarded with exceptionally positive feedback from prospective buyers and users when the new deheader was launched at the annual Salmon show in Copenhagen in 2017.
Based on this extended briefing, that already gave some initial ideas for optimisations, we started to adjust the configuration of the machine for better work flow and access. Another goal of this phase was to find the architectural “grip” that would make the machine look logical and that would make it fit to the other Marel machines.
Once the design architecture was defined, we optimised the user interaction and accessability – optimising production aspects in a close dialogue with Marel’s engineering team and we cared for the form details that create similarities to other Marel salmon processing equipment.