BresslerGroup designs ergonomic handle for Cutco

Cutco's new ice-cream scoop was a true collaboration among three top notch organizations. The scoop is one of a new family of ergonomic kitchen tools which build off of Cutco's heritage of developing high quality knives and tools. The company built their reputation with superior ergonomic handles (before the term was popularized) and their forever guarantee (literally).

So the pressure was on to create a new scoop that incorporated demonstrable features and maintained a Cutco quality look and feel. The design team – Bresslergroup ( Philadelphia ) and Cutco's development group ( Olean , NY) – started with user and competitive research to define opportunities for differentiation. Distinct features are a must for Cutco since their path to market is through in-home demonstration.

The team developed several concepts and selected the soft-grip handle represented in the final product photo. The 2-piece handle includes an injection molded structural piece and overmolded grip. The head and shaft are cast and plated zinc. Cutco's internal team took responsibility for the scoop head and designed a wide scoop with a thin edge to cut through hard ice-cream, and a pointed end to dig into square corners. Bresslergroup focused on the handle and incorporated a unique feature that holds the scoop head up to keep ice-cream off the counter.

Development of the handle form was the biggest challenge. The handle is very organic with loads of compound curves. We used SurfaceWorks for surfacing in combination with SolidWorks for the remaining parts. And while the form development required significant skill, the SolidWorks suite of products helped us efficiently reach our goal.

Bresslergroup simply emailed the handle files to Cutco for combination with the cast shaft and scoop component, which were then prototyped and tested. The resulting parts were extremely close to production-ready and used to test concepts with consumers who responded positively.

Next the files were tweaked for production. Cutco traditionally manufactures at their Olean facility. But the new scoop incorporated overmolding and castings methodologies which Cutco could not produce. So they turned to GRT-MARS.

Quality is a must for Cutco since they offer a forever guarantee which entitles customers to return unsatisfactory products at any time. Fortunately, GRT-MARS' is ISO 9001:2000 certified and delivers on its promises. There ability to effectively coordinate the project was also streamlined by the quality of the parts files, which gave the tool engineers data translations that enabled fast and mistake free manufacturing.

The coordination of tooling, first piece production and final production went seamlessly and with only minimal tweaking. There was excellent communication and cooperation among the three organizations with SolidWorks linking the parties together. In the end the project was pulled off on time, on budget and resulted in extremely strong sales for Cutco. The scoop ranked number 8 in volume for Fall 2002 out of 360 products – one of their best product introductions ever.