CASE CLOSED – CAMDENBOSS MAKES LIGHT WORK OF ENCLOSURE FOR LIGHTFOOT® DRIVER BEHAVIOUR SYSTEM

When Ashwoods Lightfoot Ltd was looking to house its second-generation Lightfoot® driver improvement, tracking and telematics device, the company turned to CamdenBoss to develop a suitable enclosure using its flat sheet plastic technology (FSPT®) to get the product to market quickly and then moved to plastic injection moulding as this became more cost-effective for higher volume orders. Dan Smalley, Project Manager at CamdenBoss and Calum Roke, Senior Development Engineer at Ashwoods Lightfoot, take up the story.

The second-generation Lightfoot Driver Behaviour System was launched in 2015 and plugs into a vehicle’s ECU to provide Formula 1 style real-time engine data analytics with intuitive visual and voice feedback to the driver. The retrofit system makes it easy for drivers to get the best out of their vehicle by optimising driving style, slashing fuel consumption, emissions and wear and tear. For thousands of fleet customers Lightfoot has been proven to reduce accident rates by up to 50% and customers can now save up to 30% on insurance premiums for Lightfoot fitted vehicles.

To enable Ashwoods to get the product moving quickly in the market and fulfill early orders, CamdenBoss recommended using its FSPT technology for the initial enclosure design. Smalley commented, “We were able to design and prototype the FSPT enclosure within two weeks without any tooling charges and made a few minor tweaks to the design once Ashwoods had the initial samples – for example, the mounting was changed to cable ties enabling the mount flanges to be slimmed down.”

Calum Roke added, “The initial phase with the FSPT enclosure worked very smoothly enabling us to get Lightfoot into the market quickly and, with small volumes of 250 off, allowed us to meet initial orders from fleet customers.”

He continued, “With the product already released, it was time to look at options for increased volumes and we submitted an enclosure design to CamdenBoss that was optimised for their moulding process.”

Smalley commented, “The immediate success of Lightfoot meant that we started to look at an injection moulded design at a very early stage following the FSPT enclosure. As we had already done the original design work in FSPT without any set up costs other than a prototype charge, the transition to a moulded version was easy. So easy, in fact, that we were able to offer a 3D moulded design without design charges and only needed to charge for the injection mould tooling.”

Roke continued, “The transition from FSPT to injection moulding was indeed very straightforward with just a couple of minor alterations required to tighten up the clipping mechanism. Once that was addressed and the final batch of sample mouldings was deemed perfect, we were able to proceed to a first production run. At that point we also provided CamdenBoss with a sample of plastic in Lightfoot house green which they used to produce housings in company colours.”

Smalley concluded, “Lightfoot is a perfect example of how enclosure buyers can take advantage of our FSPT enclosures to get products to market quickly before moving to our injection moulding service when products are needed in higher volumes.”

Information from:

Hannah Argent, CamdenBoss Ltd., 60 James Carter Road, Mildenhall, Suffolk, IP28 7DE.

Tel: +44 (0) 1638 716101, Fax: +44 (0) 1638 716554.

Email: sales@camdenboss.com                                                          
Web site: http://www.camdenboss.com

Press information from:

Jessica Davies, Marshall Jennings PR Ltd, Wyvols Court, Swallowfield, Reading, Berkshire, RG7 1WY, England.

Tel: +44 (0)118 988 0288 Fax: +44 (0)118 988 0388.

Email: tim.jennings@mjpr.com                                                                          
Web site: http://www.mjpr.com