Frustration with powdered chocolate drinks created the spark for the idea as Paul Scott of Cambridge Design Partnership explains,

“Chocolate is extremely versatile. There has been a growing appreciation of quality eating chocolate and also a boom in demand for the drink at high street outlets. This has increased dissatisfaction with the home made beverage. The powder can be difficult to mix and the result is often watery, over sweet and without that authentic flavour or richness.

“After a series of focus groups and brainstorming meetings we took to the lab and looked at the science behind the process. The result is a patent for a totally new process and the design for a machine that uses pods of real chocolate, creating a new market opportunity for quality brands.”

While consumers have embraced ‘real’ coffee, the market for premium hot chocolate is still developing. The UK hot chocolate market grew by 20% between 2007 and 2009, and is now worth just under £100m. Despite this, most hot chocolate drinks tend towards the lower end of the market, and even high street coffee outlets still routinely use flavoured syrups or powders to create their hot chocolate drinks.

Breakthrough promises to take ‘real’ hot chocolate from lab to kitchen

CDP’s Maya machine aims to address this shortfall and enable discerning drinkers to enjoy real, luxury hot chocolate at home. They believe there is potential for chocolate companies to exploit their brands in a new, premium market opportunity. In the future ranges could extend to include chilli-chocolate or liqueur flavours, or themed gift selections and other seasonal offerings.

Paul Scott continues,

“We anticipate strong consumer demand from individuals who would offer high quality chocolate as a distinctive alternative to a dessert or after-dinner coffee.

“In many European countries – France, Spain and the Netherlands especially –
chocolate is consumed at many points in the day and Maya is designed to bring this pleasure to other nations.”

To ensure regular use the iconic machine looks good on the worktop while still being easy to maintain and clean.

Cambridge Design Partnership has a strong track record in creating targeted consumer products that have been enthusiastically taken up by the public.

“We are looking for innovative partners to take Maya forwards,” says Ahmad Bittar also of CDP. “We believe that Maya offers a terrific opportunity to lead the field in the area of luxury hot chocolate, and we hope to find a partner that shares our dynamic approach and focus on excellence, to bring this product from the lab to the kitchen!”

For more information visit www.cambridge-design.co.uk

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About Cambridge Design Partnership LLP

Cambridge Design Partnership is a successful research and development consultancy focused on creating value for our clients by converting ideas and technology into commercial success. Our clients come from consumer and medical industries and they have one thing in common: they see investment in innovation as fundamental to growth and competitive advantage. Working as an integrated team, we operate ahead of market change with a dynamic, flexible approach that leads to enduring client relationships, anchored by high quality work and excellent customer service. Our staff of engineers, scientists and designers has grown rapidly to establish a world leading reputation for technical excellence, astute project management and, above all, thinking differently.

Cambridge Design Partnership
Paul Scott
Church Road, Toft
Cambridge, CB23 2RF
United Kingdom
t: +44 1223 264 428
e: ps@cambridge-design.co.uk

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18th February 2010

Carbon saving is not just for industry. Soon schools and their communities may be able to calculate their reductions too. EcoRoute is an innovative carbon saving project aimed at developing a biometric monitoring system that will motivate school children to exercise, keep healthy, and reduce CO2 emissions at the same time.

Martin Aitken, founder of EcoRoute, had the idea of incentivising carbon saving several years ago, but it was when he met Cambridge Design Partnership that the concept gained a new impetus. Support from the product development consultancy has helped EcoRoute to win one of the first Small Business Research Initiative contracts to be awarded in the East of England. Martin explains, “School children simply aren’t taking enough exercise and 30% of our children are over-weight or obese, which is storing up health problems for their future and for the NHS. The concept we have created is a low cost gadget to monitor activity that will be fun for children to use and will tap into school-based social media so that children can motivate their friends.”

Cambridge Design Partnership works with developers of both consumer gadgets and medical devices, so provided a natural fit for EcoRoute. They were asked to create a miniature monitor and find a way of reducing the cost of production so that the monitor would be cheap enough to give away to school children.

Then the synergy between the companies began to spark new ideas that complemented Martin’s approach, as Warwick Bailey, Chairman of EcoRoute explains:
“We saw that a whole community approach would help provide the momentum needed to keep the children motivated. By cutting back on the use of cars to get to and from school, pupils would be reducing carbon dioxide emissions and would help their schools meet the targets they set themselves for their sustainable travel plans that became mandatory this year. Information captured by the monitors will allow the saving to be calculated automatically, making it easy for schools to administer the programme.”

Martin continues, “Until recently, the calculation of carbon saving has only been possible for large organisations. But the sophistication of the technology available from Cambridge Design Partnership means that there is no reason why schools and communities cannot calculate their carbon saving too. For children – and adults – to be able to see what their efforts have resulted in, can be a great motivator to do even better.”

EcoRoute has calculated that if 50 percent of primary schools in the East of England replaced 25 percent of their school runs with walking or cycling this would save 8.35 million vehicle miles or 3,105 tonnes of CO2 per annum*.
The project impressed the judges of the East of England SBRI competition who saw that it would also assist the long-term goals of the NHS to reduce the demands on services created by the obesity epidemic.

The SBRI contract will enable EcoRoute, with Cambridge Design Partnership as its technology partner, to take the project forward. It is to undertake a full consultation programme with pilot schools in the East of England and NHS clinicians, and build a demonstration system.
Martin adds, “I have been working on this project for some time but this contract will accelerate the development process. We are now looking for schools and other partners interested in participating in the pilot scheme.”

This work was commissioned by the Management Board of SBRI East and funded by NHS East of England, EEDA, ERDF and the Technology Strategy Board. The views expressed in the publication are those of the author(s) are not necessarily that of the funding partners.”

Ends

www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/oct/14/smart-energy-meter/print

Navetas’ Smart Energy Monitor is a new approach to smart metering for electricity, gas and water metering. It is able to monitor readings from certified utility meters and communicate data wirelessly to a central billing system as well as indicate household energy usage to the domestic user. It incorporates non-intrusive appliance monitoring technology, developed and patented by Intelligent Sustainable Energy (ISE) that identifies the use of individual electrical appliances by interpreting mains electricity waveforms.

CDP’s closely integrated team worked together to design and develop this unprecedented product from scratch. Mechanical engineers and industrial designers created a robust, appealing product to meet all safety requirements. Simultaneously, our electronic and software engineers designed all electronics, and implemented ISE patented technology into a real product.

A breakthrough in labelling technology promises a 450% increase in throughput for leading antibody supplier, Abcam plc. The innovation, developed by Cambridge Design Partnership, enables each tiny plastic vial of product to have a unique identifier and have a label automatically applied, removing the potential for human errors and accelerating the fulfilment process.

Adam Cleevely is Head of Business Intelligence and Opportunities at Abcam plc, which provides the global scientific community with over 57,000 different biological materials. He explains that fast, accurate labelling is crucial to the business. “We needed a system that is capable of applying a human readable label to each tiny plastic tube of product, cross checking it with the 2D barcode and verifying it against our database. At present this is a manual operation, performed thousands of times each week, that requires considerable time, dexterity and accuracy. We wanted to automate this process to speed up our operations and eliminate any possibility for labelling errors.”

Dr Jez Clements, Senior Engineer and Project Leader at Cambridge Design Partnership, was tasked with finding a solution. “Part of the problem was that the labels had to withstand freezing at up to -190°C and to potentially be applied to frozen vials. We discovered an ultra thin material that would meet this requirement, not jam Abcam’s automated tube storage and retrieval systems and still allow their customers to see the contents of the tube. The challenge then was how to apply it automatically. To achieve this we invented a new way of peeling the labels off the backing material so that they are wrapped around the tubes effortlessly.”

The two companies worked together to design a novel tube labelling system that rapidly applies and prints freezer-proof labels in a fraction of the time it takes by hand. The device includes an integral barcode reader which verifies the identity of the product within the Abcam database and prints this information on to the tube in a single step.

Jim Warwick, Chief Operating Officer of Abcam plc, sees huge commercial potential for the technology which can be used in a wide range of applications in the healthcare sector. “We are delighted with the labelling technology that we have developed in collaboration with Cambridge Design Partnership. It provides an elegant solution to a logistic issue, and delivers a major efficiency improvement to our operation.

Collaborative research between a product design consultancy and an end user is an interesting business model that has benefits on many levels. It has resulted in a highly innovative product and an interesting commercial opportunity.” Dr Clements agrees. “We believe that this technology has many applications, for instance in labelling patient samples at point-of-care and in high throughput diagnostic laboratories, and we are now seeking routes by which the technology can be commercialised.”

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About Abcam PLC
Abcam is a producer and distributor of research-grade antibodies headquartered in Cambridge, UK, with offices located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, Tokyo, Japan and Hong Kong. Abcam was admitted to AIM in November 2005 and trades under the ticker symbol ABC. The Company produces and distributes its own and third party produced antibodies to academic and commercial users throughout the world with product information provided and ordering available through the Company’s website. The antibodies are sold under the Abcam brand name. The Company’s vision is to build the largest online antibody resource in the world while also ensuring that the antibodies are of high quality and commercially viable.

Abcam now has an online catalogue of over 57,000 products, most of which are antibodies, from over 250 suppliers supported by up-to-date and detailed technical data sheets, which are created by the Company. The Company currently employs over 250 staff in its four operating companies.

About Cambridge Design Partnership LLP
Cambridge Design Partnership is a successful research and development consultancy focused on creating value for our clients by converting ideas and technology into commercial success. Our clients come from medical, industrial and consumer industries and they have one thing in common: they see investment in innovation as fundamental to growth and competitive advantage. Working as an integrated team, we operate ahead of market change with a dynamic, flexible approach that leads to enduring client relationships, anchored by high quality work and excellent customer service. Our staff of engineers, scientists and designers has grown rapidly to establish a world leading reputation for technical excellence, astute project management and, above all, thinking differently.

Abcam PLC
Jim Warwick, Chief Operating Officer
330 Cambridge Science Park
Milton Road
Cambridge, CB4 OFL
United Kingdom
t: +44 1223 696000
e: corporate@abcam.com
w: www.abcam.com

Cambridge Design Partnership
Mike Beadman, Director
Church Road, Toft
Cambridge, CB23 2RF
United Kingdom
t: +44 1223 264 428
e: news@cambridge-design.co.uk
w: www.cambridge-design.co.uk

For a start-up company, hitting challenging deadlines can be critical for the success of a new product. Navetas Energy Management had a vision to launch their smart energy hub to meet the demand for smart metering. With a key trade show already in the diary, CDP were able to transform Navetas’ requirements into a quality model demonstrating real functionality in a mere four months.

Navetas’ ‘Zeo Smart Hub’ is a new approach to smart metering for electricity, gas and water metering. It is able to monitor readings from certified utility meters and communicate data wirelessly to a central billing system as well as indicate household energy usage to the domestic user. It also implements prepayment facilities, enabling energy supply according to prepayment credits purchased. Above all, it incorporates non-intrusive appliance monitoring technology, developed and patented by Intelligent Sustainable Energy (ISE) – a spin-out company formed between Navteas and Oxford University – which
identifies the use of individual electrical appliances by interpreting mains electricity waveforms.

CDP developed the Zeo Smart Hub’s user interface, delivered the styling and mechanical design and developed the electronics and software to provide complex functionality, including supporting ISE in implementing their patented algorithm in real hardware.

In addition, our Industrial Designers created the user interface for a Home Display Unit which presents the data from the Smart Hub on a separate screen, to allow users to examine their real-time energy use and energy-saving statistics interactively.

Our intensive work contributed to Navetas’ success at the Metering Europe 2009 trade show, helping to open up new opportunities in the market. CDP continues to work with Navetas to bring the innovative Zeo Smart Hub to market.

“Navetas asked CDP to help deliver its vision of a new approach to smart metering. We found that CDP clearly understood what we were trying to achieve and were able to take, develop the concepts and then help us to turn those concepts into reality in a very short time using the diverse skills base of their team.
With the launch of our product timed for a major trade show allowing for little room for manoeuvre, CDP worked tirelessly, efficiently and continuously at a high level to help us achieve a hugely successful launch of the Navetas Zeo Smart Hub.“

Nick Wellington, Navetas

www.navetas.com
www.ise-oxford.com

Cambridge Design Partnership sponsors Advances in BioDetection Technologies – London 9th October 2009.

This one-day conference, organised by Select Biosciences, brings together leaders in the arena of biosensors and detection technologies for biomedical, environmental and forensic applications. The primary focus of this meeting is the use of these next generation technologies for point-of-care diagnostics and field-based environmental test platforms, to enable rapid “on-the-scene” chemical or biological assessment.

Presentations will include the latest data for direct “on-patient” monitoring devices in the hospital setting and technologies for detecting a range of bacterial, viral and fungal pathogens including: herpes virus in spinal fluid, influenza and Healthcare Associated Infections such as MRSA and C.difficile.

The speakers are drawn from leading academic and commercial organisations. Research leaders from the University of California, Nottingham Trent University, University of Marburg, Vanderbilt University Medical Centre and University of Ireland will be presenting their cutting-edge research – an opportunity for those interested in funding future spin-outs or in-licensing novel technology platforms. Senior representatives from Philips Research, Sphere Medical, Twist DX and Network Biosystems will be describing their latest generation of products created for the fast-growing markets of point-of-care diagnostics and in-field environmental testing.

Cambridge Design Partnership is pleased to be a sponsor of this one day event.
Select Biosciences U-NETWORK communication system will be available exclusively to attendees of Select Biosciences events. Here you can view or contact delegates before and up to 4 weeks after the conference, giving you the facility to pre-arrange meetings or follow up on discussions held at the event.
Full details of the conference programme for Advances in BioDetection Technologies can be found at selectbiosciences.com

Ends

About Cambridge Design Partnership
Cambridge Design Partnership is a successful research and development consultancy focused on creating value for our clients by converting ideas and technology into commercial success. Our clients come from medical, industrial and consumer industries and they have one thing in common: they see investment in innovation as fundamental to growth and competitive advantage. Working as an integrated team, we operate ahead of market change with a dynamic, flexible approach that leads to enduring client relationships, anchored by high quality work and excellent customer service. Our staff of engineers, scientists and designers has grown rapidly to establish a world leading reputation for technical excellence, astute project management and, above all, thinking differently.

About Select Biosciences
Select Biosciences provides focused market reports, custom consultancy, recruitment, training courses and conferences to the biomedical marketplace.

Contact information
Cambridge Design Partnership
Church Road, Toft
Cambridgeshire, CB23 2RF
United Kingdom
t: +44 1223 264 428
e: news@cambridge-design.co.uk
w: www.cambridge-design.co.uk

Select Biosciences Ltd
Aaron Woodley
Woodview, Bull Lane
Sudbury, CO10 0FD
United Kingdom
t: +44 1787 315129
e: a.woodley@selectbiosciences.com