Each year, Woodstream sells about two million mousetraps, which are shipped from China in 15, 40-foot high-cube containers. By manufacturing the mousetraps in the United States, Woodstream can also cut down on their carbon footprint from shipping the traps.
When designers at Bresslergroup began the process to redesign Woodstream’s best-selling Victor Mousetrap, they had two directives: it should be able to be manufactured in the United States and it should be a more feminine-looking killing machine.
“The goal was to make it easier to assemble without changing the efficacy or the ease-of-use of the product,” says Julien Godbarge, category manager of rodent control for Woodstream. “A simple way to phrase the goal, but not a simple goal itself.”
But thanks to injection-molded plastics and a simplified design, the Victor Mousetrap can now be made in half the time with recyclable materials, and it’s still as lethal as the original.
To make it cost-effective to produce in the United States, Woodstream approached Bresslergroup, a product development consulting firm that works with clients from “napkin sketch to reality,” says Mathieu Turpault, director of design.
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The entire design had to be changed. The old mousetrap had many pieces, which created a labor-intensive assembly process that only made economic sense in China, says Turpault. Bresslergoup started by modifying the pieces of the mousetrap, making the injection-molded plastic pieces more complicated in order to reduce the total number of parts.
“The assembly process now is a very simple step-by-step process where three parts are clipped together without any fasteners, without any axels,” Turpault says.
“Before you were required to have some jigs and equipment to do the assembly properly because this trap had a spring and tension inside of it,” he adds. “The way we redesigned it, basically, is that without any tools, without any equipment, you can take the three parts and clip the assembly together and assemble it that way very quickly.”
Additionally, Bresslergroup designed the trap to be assembled over the cardboard packaging so the entire piece is put together and ready to ship in just a couple of steps. With these changes, the manufacturing cost in the United States is nearly the same as it cost to build the old trap in China, says Godbarge.
Each year, Woodstream sells about two million mousetraps, which are shipped from China in 15, 40-foot high-cube containers. By manufacturing the mousetraps in the United States, Woodstream can also cut down on their carbon footprint from shipping the traps.
The mousetrap has a few other green qualities. The mousetraps are made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) No. 2 plastic, which can be recycled more easily than the plastic it was previously made of, styrene. And because the trap is made for easy assembly, Turpault says its also easy to disassemble and recycle the pieces.
The other major requirement for the project was the aesthetic – a more “feminine killing machine” – says Turpault. Most mousetraps are purchased by women, so Woodstream wanted the product to be more aesthetically pleasing to that demographic.
“We have recognized over the years that this item is favored by women – it’s a little less threatening to them than some of the more traditional traps with big, visible springs,” Godbarge says. “When we redesigned the trap we also wanted to refresh its look, its appearance, with some more curved and rounded designs.”
The redesign for the mousetrap has come at a good time for Woodstream. A mild winter in the northeast and mid-Atlantic and an easing drought in the South will likely result in a “good year” for rodents, says Godbarge. Woodstream’s sales for many accounts are already up between 20 and 25 percent from last year.
“The timing of that switch is good because it lets us be more responsive to the market. That’s a plus,” he adds.
Woodstream and Bresslergoup are already in the process of working together to redesign other products to be manufactured in the U.S., as well as developing some new products with similar goals.
“This was a refreshing, simple, little project that really required us to get out of our comfort zone and do things a little differently,” says Turpault. “It was just fun to work for a client who has goals like this. It’s not often that we come across a client with the goal to bring back manufacturing to the U.S. I think that it was challenging and it was exciting for that reason.”
The Victor Mousetrap is available in home improvement stores like Home Depot and Lowes. For more information visit www.woodtream.com or www.bresslergroup.com.