Adding Value by Design

With Keller’s industrial design input, the team developed a more efficient, user-centred unit that takes less time to assemble and ships more easily. The frame is now made of lighter-weight aluminum and the tank has been switched from stainless steel to rotomolded polyethylene. The membrane modules can now be easily loaded from the side at shoulder height (instead of from the top). The redesign also features a sloping drain that improves performance.

In short, the new Z-Box looks stronger and more efficient, and yet is simpler and less confusing to operate and maintain. He worked on the layout and integration for the various parts of the system, streamlining the shape and look of the container. And to the team’s credit, the Z-Box packaged plant won silver at the 2006 Design Effectiveness Awards in Canada.

According to Duncan Miller, the company’s director for global packaged plants, the redesign has reduced costs by nearly half. “And the team wanted the aesthetics to send the right message to the client,” he explains. “The product now has a higher overall perceived value.”

Anthony Kobilnyk, a marketing specialist with GE, adds: “And when we take that thing to tradeshows, it’s a showstopper.”

ZeeWeed Museum
The company’s design vision is also reflected in the state-of-the-art in-house exhibition that it has mounted at its Oakville head office. The exhibit celebrates the generations of UF immersed membrane technology products.

Like the names of its products, there is something supernatural about the look of the membranes: a myriad of densely-packed fibres, manufactured under water in one of the most complex manufacturing processes to be developed and commercialized in the GTA. The in-house museum artfully captures the science and the magic of the UF membrane story.

The ZeeWeed Museum (the company’s name for the exhibition space) presents a chronological tour of the company’s history of innovation. The tour begins in the reception area with a GE-branded water cooler and a tank full of healthy-looking fish. A sign explains that because the Zenon facility is off-grid, the company uses its own membrane filtration process to treat all of the drinking and wastewater used in the building.

A showcase in the reception area houses the company’s numerous awards for product innovation, management excellence, environmental performance, corporate social responsibility and export success. Canada’s Top 100 Employers has ranked this company in their Top 100 list for the past six years. In 2004, the company was named Canada’s Top Corporate Citizen.