Conferencing Technology Project

Our customer for this project is a global leader in remote working and conference communication technologies. They set up collaborative work environments for major brands, enabling staff at these companies to link up in real time with colleagues and clients across the world. We were tasked with helping to design and create an attractive framework to surround our customer’s state-of-the-art technology. They’d already had one surround profile created, but it was angular, unappealing, and hardly the best advert for their slick conferencing set-ups. The initial design suggested by our customer wasn’t extrudable, so we worked with them to design and prototype a profile that would work. Once the extensive testing stages were out of the way, we delivered a turnkey extrusion solution to the customer, supplying and machining the extruded profiles, and providing a bespoke powder coating finish. The detailed version When this customer got in touch with us via our website, it was with a simple enough request: to create a prototype for an attractive, extruded aluminium surround for their remote conferencing technology. But, once we’d spoken with the customer in more detail, it was clear there was a lot more we could do to make their project a success. During the prototyping stages, it became obvious that the design the customer was looking for wasn’t going to be easily extrudable. Given that the customer’s ultimate goal was to secure 2% of the global market for their industry, our challenge was to help them design a profile that was relatively cheap to manufacture but visually appealing enough to communicate the brand’s value. Our design support team worked with the customer to achieve a design that was extrudable, offering additional assistance with the required corner mouldings and aluminium bending. The result was a perfected prototype that could be put into production. During a tour of our facilities, the customer was impressed by our dedicated aluminium powder coating centre, where we’re able to offer 200 stock finishes, as well as a range of bespoke colours - ideal for matching to our customers’ exact specifications. The outcome We’re continuing to work with this customer. The design is complete and finalised, and the product has been put to market. Sales are starting to increase, and the customer’s on their way to securing a large market share, which will mean tens of thousands of units needed. Our initial design support has enabled the customer to make significant savings on expensive aluminium tooling costs, and has created a product that is both functional and aesthetically on point.