ELMNT
Commercial Kitchen Equipment
Client: Agnisumukh Work: User Research, Industrial Design, Design Engineering, Prototyping Year: 2017-18
Awards: Singapore Design Award 2018-19, India's Best Design Award 2018
Agnisumukh means the “friendly face of fire” in Sanskrit and is the dreamchild of the passionate entrepreneur, Mr. Hari Rao. Agnisumukh manufactures smokeless radiant heat cooking equipment for commercial kitchens to help them cook food in a healthy eco-friendly way. Their technology is patented and has far and wide applications with gas fuels. They are also the first company to adhere to 15 of the 17 UNSDG 2020 goals and dreamt of recreating the uniform heat and cooking that is achieved in a traditional charcoal oven.
Challenges
Business goals:
Showcasing the credibility of the tech
Reducing inventory management
Designing for ease of manufacturing
Scalable solution to fit different kitchen spaces
Creative goals:
Increasing efficiency
Consistency
Easy to maintain
Ergonomic & Functional Design
01. Inventory Management
The client had more than 24 unique product SKU's which resulted in a high inventory and management cost, higher efforts in assembly and redundant parts in BOM resulting in product identity as well as increased operational costs.
Solution
We designed a universal product ecosystem with a scalable product bringing the SKU count down to 12 unique products, hence reducing the costs by over 50%. This also resulted in their customers having to make complicated choices and increased their product sales by 28%.
03. Ergonomics
The Kitchen staff spend long hours and with the ergonomics of control interfaces, the height of the appliances and automation features were key to help chefs and cooks make the best use of the product.
Solution
Understanding their pain points through focussed ethnographic observation, we designed the appliances to have adjustable controls to fit varying heights of different users including looking at the constant control interfaces that chefs and cooks interact with. A lot of cooks work controlling the heat knobs constantly checking the heat to make sure the food is cooked fully.
04. Tech Credibility
The client is a pioneer in radiant heat tech and one of the very few who adhere to 15 of the 17 UN SDG goals. This tech provides an environmental friendly and energy efficient heating solution across all type of gas fuels. But their existing range of products did not showcase this sophistication on the product side as it was built and had not gone through a clear design process to refine the product range.
Solution
We focussed on showcasing the key features of the tech by understanding and observing key problems that the users faced on a daily basis. With a variety of cuisines and dishes being cooked at different heat settings and in various kitchen configurations, we focussed on designing ergonomic and human problems that elevate the tech all the while creating a modern design language and a sophisticated product range that can compete globally.
05. Modular Architecture
One of the main hurdles we faced was a huge number of individual products within the inventory of the brand. When we observed how the products were being used, we found a lot of overlapping function which could be set up as an ecosystem and grouped together to reduce the number of SKU's.
Solution
Through a thorough iterative process, we were able to find and group functionalities of a similar nature to create modular attachments and reduce the number of SKU's that were being manufactured as individual products. The attachments were designed to work with 3 main cooking bases that housed modular burners to fit a variety of scenarios. This created a reduced cost on inventory and also in tooling and manufacturing, while increasing a wide set of expandable features.
