Zyliss Swift Dry Salad Spinner

How do you improve on a market leading product? This was the challenge PDD took on when Swiss kitchen tool company, Zyliss, approached us with an innovation brief for its Smart Touch range of salad spinners. The goal: to bring down the cost of manufacture while developing a line of products that would significantly differentiate and outperform competitors in a highly saturated market.

The main issues with the current products were that people found them too complex to assemble and, in certain markets, failures with the internal mechanism had lost buyer’s confidence. We addressed these issues by eliminating and merging parts, which were previously deemed ‘over engineered’. We decided not to refine the existing ‘Sprang Cluster’ but to introduce a proven ‘Slip gear’ mechanism; it was an intense development and tuning exercise. Because we had to align the performance, with manufacturing and assembly requirements.

Zyliss required the design to be produced in two sizes, which meant streamlining the assemblies with common parts, was one of the key aspects in keeping tooling costs and part counts low.

We essentially redesigned every part in the assembly and one of the most drastic was to the basket. We worked together to develop a unique design, which improved the drying performance of its contents and patented as AquaVent. We made sure the design of the basket visually conveys its abilities as well, so it could have presence on the store shelves.

It now out performs its competitors by 25%, with strong visual elements to express where the added performance is coming from and it was also a patented element for an added key difference in the market. All at the same time the new range costs less to make while maintaining the Zyliss premium look and feel.