SkyBrush: Re-inventing a product, process, and business

Consider the lowly blackboard eraser. It’s the kind of workaday invention – old-school, if you like – that’s so familiar it’s all but invisible. A product like that lingers decade after decade without much change in appearance or function, not because it can’t be improved, but because no one has brought the right skill and vision to bear on it. In this case, brushing up a staid old standby needed the assistance of MTS.

Those clunky felt blocks did more smearing than erasing. The felt picked up some dust, but it forced more of the chalk grains into pores in the board surface. Wipe by wipe, words and numbers got harder and harder to read. Eventually the blackboards needed regular washing (scrubbing with clean water) to allow legible use.

As whiteboards replaced chalkboards in many classrooms, conference rooms and corporate settings, the dust was gone but problems remained. Whiteboard erasers left a smeared mess behind – unsightly, unprofessional and also hard to read. Whiteboard spray cleaners became imperative to lift the smear from the whiteboard surface.

A better answer was at hand. The original inventor’s core concept: resilient glass bristles anchored in a polymer block replaced felt. The glass bristles flicked chalk off of the blackboard surface and the ink from whiteboards. The Skybrush eraser ended the need to wash blackboards or clean whiteboards with harsh solvents. Gone were the dusty days of yesteryear, and the extra effort that went with them.

SkyBrush left whiteboards and chalkboards clear, streak-free and easy to read. It was superior in every way to the erasers it was replacing.

To achieve this advance, it was essential to redefine the manufacturing process, maximizing profitability and safety. Initial methods relied on large, unwieldy molds and an old oil-fired boiler. The first essential change came from the design side of MTS. MTS made the brush ergonomic in shape to allow a better “feel” in the user’s hand. New materials and forms for the brush reshaped it to fit the hand perfectly – and visually asserted its status as a high-function contemporary object.

A comprehensive evaluation of approaches and equipment impelled a change to small, lightweight molds that are handled with far greater speed, ease and safety. An more efficient EPS bead pre-expander was added to the process to lower the total cost of the brush material. The boiler was replaced by steam cabinets. These cabinets allow for the more precise temperature control needed to make a more consistent quality product. The cabinets were sourced to be affordable, durable and readily available through supply channels. Productivity and profitability improvements from these changes have been substantial.

MTS was also asked to get involved with the marketing and sales of SkyBrush. Our team developed the marketing plan, then designed a two-tiered product offering that emphasized the ways in which the product’s look and feel were as exciting as its function. Fundamental to this part of our work was creating an e-commerce website to anchor SkyBrush sales. These were vital steps. Together with our total reconfiguration of the manufacturing process, they transformed an already good idea and made it the basis for a highly viable business.

There’s hardly a manufactured product anywhere that can’t benefit from focused reengineering, re-design and an alignment with a vibrant marketing and sales plan. MTS has the creative and technical capabilities to address any factors that limit a product in look, feel and function – and wipe them out.