The Muller Project

Stoke-on-Trent is a well known base for a significant number of companies which manufacture pottery products. Besides this, there are also major automotive manufacturers such as Toyota, JCB and Bentley which draw labour from the local area. The Diploma in Manufacturing and Product Design is seen as excellent preparation for young people who may want to move into the manufacturing sector to take advantage of the recent increase in local jobs.

The consortium has well-established links with the manufacturing and product design industry. One of the high profile brands working with the consortium is Müller Dairy, based in nearby Market Drayton.

“It is vital that we in the industry work with schools to deliver this work-relevant qualification. Through it, we have been given the opportunity to ignite a passion for science, design and technology. Müller Dairy is committed – through CSR – to show young people, the innovators of tomorrow, just what opportunities await them in this diverse sector.”

Martin Webber, Head of Research and Development, Muller Dairy

Visit to Müller Dairy

On 11 September 2009, 18 level 2 students from Edensor Technology College (ETC) and Thistley Hough High School (A Media and Visual Arts College), visited Müller’s Market Drayton Dairy.

Müller Dairy staff treated the Diploma students to a presentation about the Müller brand and its many products and gave them information about the design of products and packaging as well as an introduction to Müller’s competitors. The company also gave detail of the brand advertising strategy, information about quality standards and discussed the batch production process with the students.

At the end of the visit Diploma students were given a real industrial project brief. Müller Dairy set the deadline of the 10 December. It was the company’s expectation that the young people would present their research findings, recommendations and prototypes to a Müller Marketing Manager and a Research and Development professional at an event on this date.

The industry brief

Design and develop a healthy snack product for an identified target market.

The students were expected to undertake research and select an age group to target, consider and make decisions on a recommended retail price as well as size, form, nutrition, packaging and branding for the product.

Classroom based activity

Back in the classroom, students undertook some team building exercises, to help them work together effectively from the start.

They then embarked on the project, with lesson delivery tailored around the unit specification. Diploma in MPD teachers taught the students the detail of the product design and development process.

Specifically, the students learned how to analyse a brief and identify appropriate research. They learnt how to write open and closed questions for questionnaire-based primary research and how to analyse existing products and packaging.

They learned creative design techniques such as brainstorming and sketching, and from this how to formulate a design specification which they would use to inform design ideas.
Following this, the students developing the food element learned about food safety and hygiene standards, the properties of ingredients and appropriate cooking methods.

Meanwhile, the students developing the packaging learned how to use a wide range of industry standard software to develop the graphics and moulds to manufacture the bars. They also learned how to construct mould patterns and used vacuum formers to produce their mould.

The young people from ETC focused on development of the actual snack product, making decisions on shape, size, flavour and ingredients. Whilst Thistley Hough High School worked on the development of a name, branding, packaging and advertising.

Research focus

Following the team building exercise, the student teams engaged in brainstorming sessions which helped them to identify the aspects of the design of the snack products which would be most important to retailers, consumers and designers. The students created mind maps and then ranked these aspects in order of importance.
The concepts which were ranked most highly became a key focus for the young designers, and informed their ultimate product design decisions.

The students undertook some secondary research, via the internet, to investigate Müller Dairy’s competitors and the products currently on the market. They needed to find out about cost, size, design, flavour, advertising, and ingredient use.

The young people designed questionnaires which they took onto the streets of Stoke. These included questions designed to discover what the consumer preferences in terms of flavour, price, image, nutrition and shape. It also included questions about the time of day which customers usually consume snack bars.

Design software

Thanks to the industrial experience of Diploma in MPD teacher, Lee McCue, students were taught to operate a wide varied of industry standard design software. Equipped with these new skills, the Thistley Hough learners were able to produce high quality CAD designs for the packaging, which they then developed into 3D prototypes. Some of the young people developed engineering drawings and then turned these into 3D prototypes of both the snack bar itself and the packaging.

Product design recommendations and presentation

In order for Müller Dairy executives and teachers to assess the work, the students produced and delivered power point presentations, in which they reported on the work. These covered detail of the stages through which the project had passed, the activities undertaken, consideration of a series of alternative plans and ideas as well as justification for the final decision. This presentation was delivered to classmates, teachers and Müller Dairy executives on the 10 December.

Prototypes of the snack product and packaging were displayed at the event as were posters describing the full project process.

The day was very successful and all those who were there to assess the work were impressed by the high quality.

“We’ve been working on this project with Müller Dairy for the last three months. I have loved this project and would definitely recommend this Diploma to people choosing their options at the moment.

I have had fun, worked hard and learnt a lot. I really enjoyed learning how to use the design software, and am really pleased with my designs. Müller seemed quite impressed too! My goal is to learn as much as I can about design.

I want to go to university and then hope to become a designer for a big company like Müller Dairy.”
  

Nathan Burton, Diploma in MPD student