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Rubbermaid® Commercial Products’ StockMate™ Honored for Innovative Design
The StockMate Restocking Truck from Rubbermaid Commercial Products (RCP) was recognized for its innovative design and was awarded a Bronze award in the 2003 Industrial Design Excellence Awards (IDEA) competition. The award placed RCP in the company of innovators like BMW, Logitech and Palm.
IDEA is co-sponsored by BusinessWeek magazine and the Industrial Design Society of America (IDSA).
StockMate is a new, practical approach to transporting cartons and stocking shelves. While old, outdated U-Carts have long dominated the stocking process, StockMate takes a new, user-friendly approach. It features a unique dent- and chip-resistant plastic deck that hinges and folds, enabling a quick conversion to a smaller cart. It also includes an end-mounted work platform with storage compartment, an attachable refuse bin, a three-position cardboard management system, a holder for safety signs and other ergonomic, timesaving features.
A jury of 16 non-affiliated designers spent two and a half days of intense evaluation and debate before picking the winning products. Judging criteria for each entry fulfilled five areas of industrial design excellence: design innovation, benefit to the user, benefit to the client/business, ecological responsibility and appropriate aesthetics and appeal.
Functionality was a key component at this year’s competition and jurors were impressed with the move toward product designs that solve everyday life issues. “These winners show that design is not about style but about problem solving and context,” Juror Charles Burnette, IDSA, Director of the Industrial Design Graduate Program at the University of the Arts, said.
Although completely honored by the award, RCP engineer Rad Arceta was not overcome with surprise when he heard the news. “We knew the minute StockMate was designed that we had something real and imaginative on our hands,” he said. “It was just a matter of really listening to end users and figuring out how we could make the stocking process a whole new experience for them.”
The IDEA program fosters business and public understanding about the impact of industrial design excellence on the quality of life and the economy. IDEA winners will be honored in a grand celebration August 16, the final day of the 2003 IDSA National Conference & Design Gallery in New York City.
IDSA is the nonprofit association that represents the profession of industrial design to education, business, government and the public and serves the profession’s needs for information and networking. To see all the winners of this year’s competition, visit www.idsa.org or check out the June 27 issue of BusinessWeek.
