In November 2020, PROGRESS and its teams met Christelle COURREGE, a young entrepreneur with an innovative project for a compartmentalized silicone plate designed for food diversification for toddlers.
From our first meeting, we saw the opportunity to create an innovative and functional piece associated with various colors. During this appointment, Christelle showed us a 3D print of the model she wanted to create and presented her sales objectives; a clear and well-structured project. From the prototype, we launched the project study to determine the best ratio between tooling investment and part prices in correlation with our production capabilities. The plate represented an interesting challenge both in its dimensions (200 x 200) and in its design.
We decided to propose a 4-impression rubber injection mold with a relatively high hardness of 70 or 80 Shore A. In February 2021, the order was placed.
Based on the file provided by the "Ma Petite Assiette" team, our Design Office created a definitive plan for the part we would produce as well as the plan for the mold we would need to build.
Once the plan was validated by our client, our teams began machining the mold in our mechanical workshop. Machining, wire cutting, erosion, and turning. Many hours of work were necessary to design the mold and its 4 cavities. In parallel with the tool design, we launched the study of colors and color matching based on RAL. We formulated 4 colors: green (6019), gray (7001), pink (3015), and blue (5024).
After 6 weeks of machining, the first tests took place at the end of July to validate the mold design. Slight adjustments were necessary and made in September. From there, we molded the Initial Samples for final validation of the prototype with the Ma Petite Assiette teams. This validation came a few days later, which gave us the opportunity to launch production in October and deliver more than 1,000 units before the Christmas holidays in 2021; the success story was launched. Since then, we have produced several thousand copies of this plate and are still working today on developing new colors such as terracotta (8004).
This was the first project with Ma Petite Assiette. We then worked together on developing a silicone straw, still within the framework of food diversification.
Thank you to Christelle COURREGE and all the Ma Petite Assiette teams for their trust.
Watch her testimonial video: