Living up to SCA’s demands requires a broad spectrum of experience in both mechanics and design. With more than 20-years experience in cooperation with SCA, Creator knows well its customer’s demands as well as the competences required to continually develop new, innovative products.

The project:

Creator’s assignment was to develop technical and mechanical solutions for an existing design for SCA’s Tork Elevation series consisting of 16 dispenser models. SCA’s visions for the design were to be realized in a complete concept where form and function were intimately intertwined and the product calculation was to be kept as low as possible.

SCA’s requirement specification was tough to meet. The dispensers were to be smaller than the competitors’, quiet while dispensing, robust, durable over time, and able to withstand intensive use. The paper dispensers were to minimize paper spill as well. The entire chain of production was required to adapt to these high standards and at the same time achieve on low production costs for large production volumes and massive global sales.

For all the new products, the design was to be aesthetically appealing, following the existing form and visual profile. However, even if design plays a big part in development, the same high demands on functionality are always present.

The challenge was in discovering and realizing the optimal balance between form and durability, and yet achieve simple functionality Handling the dispensers was to be natural and intuitive for both maintenance personnel and the end user.

The solution:

Many years experience in managing large projects makes Creator a clear choice for SCA’s Tork Elevation product series; This, as well as the combination of Creator’s extensive knowledge in tool production, advanced plastic production, and expertise in prototype creation and production.

”To achieve a low product cost that fulfills the requirement specification, we chose to design the Tork Elevation series entirely in plastic,” says Per Möller, one of the project managers for Tork Elevation. “Taking into account the large production volumes, double injection moulding was by far the best economical alternative. Plastic is also an optimal material for the environments where the products will be used.”

In order to meet durability requirements, the hoods have been made in ABS plastic. The Tork Elevation series, consists of double injection moulded hoods, one semitransparent and one opaque part. In order for the seam between the two materials to be as strong as possible, Creator designed a patented binding geometry solution together with a world-leading plastic producer.

The most difficult mechanical challenges proved to lie in the dispensers that switches toilet paper rolls automatically when one roll is spent. This is where the design, consisting of moving, interlocking plastic parts, initiates the shifting mechanism when the active paper roll’s diameter is smaller than what the two sensors sitting in the dispenser.

The result:

Creator’s design efforts have become a unique combination of form and function that resulted in patented mechanical solutions. The prizewinning Tork Elevation series is as esthetic as it is practical, Thanks partly to the unsurpassable double component seam solution technique when moulded, Creator has taken a solid lead in front of its competitors. The 16 dispenser model series all follow the same visual profile, and all of them except one are available in black and white. The Tork Elevation series products have become popular and shipped to hundreds of thousands of washrooms around the world.

”We were faced with many challenges,” says Creator’s Managing Director Allan Salåker. We stretched the limits and were forced to develop new, creative solutions in order to achieve a well balanced combination of first-rate functionality, appealing design and low production costs.”