Remodeling On the Road: Moen

Bringing Products to Life

To turn thoughts into tangible concepts, Moen’s marketing team and project managers enlist the skill of the company’s Industrial Design staff. This group keeps their fingers on the pulse of design, not just in terms of aesthetics, but functionality as well. “We track trends globally, and we work closely with interior designers and architects to stay in touch with consumers’ needs and wants,” says Ji Kim, director of global design. “Our designers have training in both fine art and engineering backgrounds, so they’re well aware of how mood, look, and feel work together in successful design.”

Kim and Maher call concept production a “Darwinian” process. From 40 design sketches, the group may ask for hard-foam mockups of 25 to 30 designs (constructed in the on-site prototype development lab), and ultimately only two or three designs will be chosen for finished models. “You have niche trends that pop up for a couple of years or a certain type of consumer, but we have to focus on what’s popular and what stays on trend more consistently,” Kim says. “We want products to complement our current product line, and not overlap existing designs or move off course.”

Maher adds that the designs have to be scaleable. A funky, unique product design may not lend itself to a full suite of faucets, showerheads, and accessories.

In the prototype development and mechanized test labs (both off-limits to photography), engineers use high-tech equipment, such as 3D printers, to build test-worthy models of potential new products, complete with articulated handles and other parts. The hard plastic material is strong enough to let Kim and Maher’s teams run water through them and test them for looks and functionality. For products that get the thumbs up and are produced in brass with full finishes, technicians put them through their paces, testing for everything from durability of finishes to the effects of different types of water on the interior construction. And sometimes they get to break stuff.

“We need to break things, and we need to break them in a certain spot,” says test engineer Rob McGloin. “For any product out there, someone will find a way to break it, so we actually design failure points into each of our products. In doing so, we can ensure that if and when a product stops working, the failure occurs in a way that other parts of the product or the surrounding area aren’t damaged as well.” The company’s “torture testing” labs run each product through hundreds of thousands of cycles, meeting not just the code-compliance testing standards, but Moen’s own standards of durability and reliability. The lab operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and engineers are alerted when failures are reached. For more real-world testing, a portion of the facility is built out like a real house with cabinetry, flooring, and plumbing behind the walls. This allows the company to train staff on product installations, and also manage focus group feedback in areas like the showering test lab.

“Anyone who calls Moen with questions or for installation assistance is calling directly into North Olmsted, Ohio, and our customer service representatives are well trained,” adds mechanical test lab manager Mark Meldrum. It’s the perfect finishing touch for products that have gone through the rigors of design and performance testing before reaching homeowners around the world.