Johnson & Johnson

Johnson & Johnson’s Functional Toothbrush Prototypes

Thanks to a Roland desktop mill, Johnson & Johnson is getting toothbrushes to market faster and lowering its development costs at the same time.

The ability to mill precision prototypes in the same material as the final product lets is the key. It lets Johnson & Johnson fully evaluate the product and work out potential design problems early in the design process. These prototypes actually work! 

In vitro tests reveal everything from product wear and fatigue, to fit and aesthetics. After that, focus groups and observed consumers actually use the prototypes. If a prototype fails at any point during testing, the design goes right back into the CAD software program for re-editing. In some cases, the product goes all the way back to the drawing board for the industrial designer to create a new model.  

“The SRP device accepts so many materials, we can test for FDA consumer guidelines and evaluate different types of materials/plastics for usability before any production begins,” said Justin McDonough, Johnson & Johnson product designer. “It saves us so much time and money.”

Once production begins, correcting problems is much more cumbersome and expensive.

“Materials are available from hundreds of competing vendors, dramatically lowering material costs,” said McDonough. “We can even build our toothbrush prototypes in different colors, as well as different densities.”

A larger selection of materials to choose from makes it easier to create prototypes that meet FDA and other special government requirements, including UV resistance, bending strength, surface hardness, electrical conductivity, etc. This is particularly important for biomedical and food processing products, where biocompatibility and chemically inert properties are critical.