As a Product Engineer at OXO, I led technical development of the 5lb Scale redesign. This involved replacing a metal part with plastic to save cost, moving the product to a new factory, and updating the design to match the rest of the OXO scales.
I worked with our contract manufacturer to test many different engineering plastics to replace the sheet metal part. I used a new material that saved cost while still fulfilling our requirements for stiffness, warp and moldability. I was also able to switch the new scale from our previous low-cost zebra connector to a more expensive but more reliable pin-through connection. This led to a lower scrap rate and more efficient production.