From Concept to Launch: Developing a Disruptive Product Portfolio Using a Digital Mindset

Carl:

For this episode, we’re going to be talking about a project that involves on-site septic chambers, which are an alternative to piping systems that are used for residential properties. The benefits of on-site septic chambers is that because they have a greater contact patch with a soil, they’re an arch-shaped structure with an open bottom it allows for the affluent to have greater contact with the surrounding soil, which ultimately results in better treatment, a more efficient treatment, and it allows the length of the systems to be shorter and generally more compact. Prinsco came to us to support them with this project because we’ve had a long-standing relationship with Prinsco. We’re heavily involved in new product development and prototyping.

Brian:

The scope has changed a little bit over a period of time, but we started this project focused on napkin sketches and gaining awareness and knowledge about the industry and continued down to thinking about design for manufacturing. Making sure that we’ve got the ergonomics set up for the end-use application.

Carl:

And through this discussion we’re talking with a couple of folks from Prinsco, Jason Ahrenholz and Judd Efinger. And Jason is the director of engineering for Prinsco, and he and his team are responsible for the integration of the project from a technical standpoint, Judd Efinger is the executive sponsor for the project and he’s the internal subject matter expert. And he was the driver to ensure that the product that we developed collaboratively met the market requirements and it’s something that they could successfully take to the market and support their business case.

And for this conversation, you are the person. It’s like you’re the brainchild, the spearhead. You’re the individual that sparked this idea at Prinsco to get into this market and have been the pusher, the magic man, however you want to call it, behind the scenes that has been instrumental in making this a reality.

Judd Efinger:

Yeah. Well, thanks. I think I had a partner in crime for sure, and that’s Jamie Duininck. So when he brought me on in 2012 we almost immediately had some conversations about launching really two series of chambers. The stormwater chamber, which ultimately became the HydroStor chamber, and then the on site chambers, which became the Pro4 chambers. So those conversations started really early, maybe 2012. And then we moved to concept business plan in 2015.

Carl:

A long journey and a lot of commitment. And that’s one of the things that at least from my perspective, that has been one of the core aspects of the success is the commitment that Prinsco from a leadership standpoint and organization wide has had in this program. And as you said, the first version of the business plan was 2015. I think the project started in some form maybe a few years after that in terms of getting some real traction.

So in this podcast segment, we’re going to be talking about the industry on-site septic chambers and why Prinsco targeted this market. It’s such a complementary market to what they’re serving already with stormwater management. And this is another water management market segment that just made sense for Prinsco and the types of customers that they’re serving today. And some of the challenges were that while it’s new for Prinsco, there’s a lot of competitive market presence where there are alternative solutions that are being sold and used today, being specified and navigating some of the specifications and existing intellectual property was a critical component to this, and we’re going to talk about that in this segment.

Brian:

There’s always been this underlying strong tone with Prinsco of water conservation and a focus on treating water. And in those early days, it was about making sure that Prinsco can have the biggest impact on that across the country. Because regionally there just wasn’t enough impact. Prinsco’s impact needed to expand. It seems like that’s a core component of … It’s like the underlying tone that you’re talking through.

Judd Efinger:

For sure. And I don’t think we really made it part of our vision until maybe the early 2020s. It became officially Prinsco’s vision to be a national water solution provider. But it was being talked about in that 2018 timeframe that this really was the way to protect what we had in the Midwest and then expand nationally.

Carl:

So it was interesting you were asking about what the level of commitment was and it’s neat to think back because that first leg was putting together the market study, that six month study that you did, Judd, and then there was another dive into study the competitive landscape and what could a solution look like, what other barriers existed and how could a solution look without upsetting the apple cart with respect to other manufacturers? And I think that that was something that took, again, six to nine months maybe in total doing that canvassing of that competitive landscape.

Judd Efinger:

Yeah. For sure. So Brand X, the chief competitor has 15 or 16 chamber sizes, so we knew we didn’t want to embark on that journey. That’s a 30-year journey for them. So we really came down to the 90 10 rule. What chambers could we develop and what number of chambers did we need to get 90% of the market? We settled at the time on five chambers I think is in the original business case. We’re at four now. And really looking at the fifth as a potential. It has somewhat of a limited market. So that’s under analysis now maybe for next year’s R&D project.

And then I was going to mention that I think that’s likely when we partnered with DI Labs, correct? Is really that initial look at the competitive landscape and all the intellectual property. Brand X just did a remarkable job at coming up with the craziest IP protection that you can imagine and you guys had to shift through all those patents. And that really was, I think when we realized we had something when we saw potential workarounds that you guys presented to us. Because that was the chief concern with the program initially.

Carl:

It’s neat to think back to that first gate that we had to pass through. It ultimately laid out what the playing field looked like for us and bringing a product line to market. And at that point we had the playing field, we had some price targets. Of course, the market continued to evolve through this time.

In this segment, we’re going to talk about why we explored injection molding. Initially we felt that injection molding would give us the lowest part cost. However, after digging into it pretty quickly we learned that the part cost was higher than we expected, and then factoring in the capital expenses of the tooling it through the project out of whack. So using our digital mindset, we quickly explored alternative options. Looking at thermoforming and thermoforming typically doesn’t work well for parts like these, but we explored it rapidly using some additive manufactured tooling that allowed us to shoot some mold or shoot some parts and quickly analyze those and determine whether or not thermoforming was a viable candidate.

Jason Ahrenholz:

We hit that fork in the road where the traditional injection molded approach just it wasn’t going to make financial sense. And so we had to explore an alternate approach. With Prinsco’s commitment we want to get this done, we want to figure this out. We were thinking about what could we do differently and thinking outside the box of what other technologies are out there. And started to look at large scale equipment that is out there, and I think ultimately aligned with a company that does really massive thermoforming. And as you guys know, thermoforming is not a feature rich process for both sides of the product. And so there was limitations versus injection molding. And so we had to work through those. Uncover how could we get the features that are necessary for this product to be successful with that process. I think that conversation went on for six to nine to even 12 months and got pretty far down the road. But it was definitely a good learning opportunity too of just exploring what else is out there.

Brian:

I think learning and continuing to stretch and explore what commitment meant for Prinsco. There was two neat things about thermoforming and going through that journey that gave us a lot of confidence and allowed us to test things with low investment.Bbecause as we’re in the thermoforming realm, we knew that the end result, the tool that we were after was very complex. It was very expensive. But we were able to trial and test with a similar process with low cost tooling, with simple approaches. And that gave us the chance to have these full scale parts out of a finished material that we could all talk about, we could hold, we could test and trial, and we can explore what the end result look like. But we’re able to do that under this safety curtain at that point in time where we’re testing commitment, how far are we going to take this? How committed is Prinsco because we’re going to fail, we’re going to continue to fail along the journey, but we got to carry on and get the physical parts in front of us.

Jason Ahrenholz:

As you think about traditional thermoforming in the part … And we’ve got a sample here of what our finished part looks like today. But a feature that’s absolutely necessary for this product is these louver sections. And in traditional thermoforming, you’re looking at a two-dimensional mold moving vertically to separate and to form that undercut with those louvers was very difficult. And we thought about using a punch or another system to process those, but I think you guys came up with a very unique idea by incorporating additive manufacturing to be able to use inserts to help form that feature with thermoforming that could then be removed. So I just remember that. It was once again, one of those roadblocks that we hit of, man, how are we going to do this? But being able to validate that with full product in a very small scale test was pretty cool.

Brian:

And any of those release points, the pressure is really high. It feels like, boy, we need to launch this product in two days. So we’ve had to get some clear answers on where we’re going. And being able to use additive manufacturing at that point to make those features allowed us to shorten the timeline to get that tool in front of us so we can make a decision. What the heck do we need to do next?

Carl:

So one of the challenges we had early on was that these were relatively large and they’re required a fair amount of tonnage, clamp tonnage, which put them into an equipment class that had significant operating expenses, significant overhead, which drove the part cost up substantially. So initially the economics of injection molding didn’t work because of the parts size and the class of machine that had to run them, which is what drove us to thermoforming. And it’s interesting to think back to over that nine months or so that we were exploring thermoforming. There was advancements in injection molding with a partner that Prinsco was working with that ultimately enabled Prinsco to run those chambers on those machines using a very innovative approach to ultimately defray that overhead drive costs down and have parts that were economically feasible again. So it’s almost like the time that we took to explore allowed us to explore and learn, but also allowed some time to pass for innovation on the injection molded side, which that is remarkable. And in my experience, I don’t think there’s enough companies out there that are willing to devote the exploration time to drive to a solution with excellence. And one of the critical things that made this program successful is that willingness to explore and the grit to ultimately persevere.

Brian:

There’s no doubt in my mind that if we somehow skipped the thermoforming process, we decided not to explore that, but the project continued on the product would be completely different today. It would not be what it is.

Carl:

So at what point in this journey did that fear or fear … Maybe question’s a better way to put it. The question of whether or not we’d be able to get there. At what point did that resolve itself and it was obvious like, oh yeah, this is in the bag? We got challenges, but it’s in the bag?

Judd Efinger:

Yeah. Good question. I mean, I can just give you my personal take on it is I was pretty concerned with the thermoform model. And I don’t even think it was skeptical. I really love innovation, so I was just maybe trying to be patient with that part of the journey. But I think it was when we came back to injection molding and having multiple tools hung on a large machine and seeing some of that pricing model. And the other thing that we have to understand is while all that was happening, Brand X was doing a price increase every year because there was no competitors. So every time while we were on our journey of maybe a couple of years of exploration, we were getting some increased market pricing, which allows us to have some of those opportunities on the manufacturing side. So the cost of entry did change during that time period, which was fortuitous.

Brian:

So in this segment, we’re going to talk through our journey back to injection molding. And this project was very difficult because of all the constraints from part cost to IP and finding our way back to injection molding was unexpected in this stage of the journey,

Carl:

But that’s when the tides turned and we found ourselves ultimately landing back on injection molding because the part cost aligned with the financial projections. And at this point using injection molding. We also came up with a concept. Brian came up with a concept of using a unique art shape, a unique geometry for the chamber. And this idea of the unique art shape and the injection molding came together at the same time and that was the aha moment. And we’re going to talk a lot about that in this segment. This is a pretty fun segment.

Brian:

So you mentioned asymmetrical design. As we are navigating this journey, we’re thinking about the product family, and there’s limitations with the low profile version of this product within the product family. And since we had this purview to look at the whole thing coming up with the asymmetrical design allowed us to solve a problem within the low profile, and then we could spread that solution across the whole product family to give us a continuous product family that looked like it belonged rather than different solutions for different applications.

Jason Ahrenholz:

We were actually … I think all three of us were together on a trip visiting manufacturers. And I remember at that point we were, I would say 80% plus committed to the thermoforming process. I definitely shared Judd’s sentiment. There was some reservation there and lack of understanding of how this would really come together, but we just so happened to reach back out to our current supplier, our current vendor that we’re working with on injection molding and that’s when that renewed approach took shape. And I remember the trip home, man, there was excitement. It was like a flip of the switch. It went from we’re very committed down one path to, Hey, we’ve got a new opportunity here. I think it almost re-energized this project and gave it new life because it definitely opened up our possibility of how we could design moving forward then too.

Brian:

I don’t know if the switch hit for me until Prinsco approved the low profile designs because there’s so much outside optimistic, but internally being really critical of the things that have been launched and knowing that nothing is ever perfect, but we need to continue to work through to make the product better. I’ve seen products fail at all stages, so it’s like it’s not over until it’s over. But getting through and starting in on the design of the LP and carrying that forward, that was the trigger to me. That’s like, okay, we’ve built enough of a foundation here. Things are good.

Judd Efinger:

That low profile chamber, which is our fourth, just launched this spring, had the most IP protection, so it was always going to be the most difficult chamber for us. So that’s interesting that our chief designer was using that as the, I finally got this. So yeah. Not surprising. That was a challenge.

Carl:

It was neat to see the unique approach to design going as injection molded was selected, and then the determination of the approach for the product functionality to meet the structural performance while not stepping on toes of existing designs. Neat to see the asymmetric approach. That’s unlike anything else that’s out there. Seeing that adopted by the team as a whole because it is unique and different. And then taking that steps further to the most challenging structural product and then incorporating those changes and having that approved to me is just another testament to the commitment to the program and willingness to think outside the norm, so to speak, to meet the requirements and have a product that was cost-effective.

Judd Efinger:

A presentation you guys gave. Again, somewhere in that process. I can’t remember what year it would’ve been, but where you came to us with the … Did you guys realize that Brand X has a patent on an arch? I’m like, “Wait a minute. I thought the Romans and Greeks invented the arch. How can that possibly be?” And sure enough, it existed. So for us to come up with that solution, you guys to come up with that solution for the opposing arch maybe was my shining light as managing the project, just saying, “Wow. I think we got it now.”

Brian:

It was then that it was like we had to rewrite this because the design we have today is for thermoforming and it doesn’t really fit the needs that we have for if we’re going to injection mold it. So it was like we completely started over from a design philosophy standpoint, and I think that was the trigger point to allow for, okay, we’ve got low profile that’s highly constrained. We have all these IP considerations that we have to work around, and then we have these other products that are less constrained, but these all have to work together. And how do we blend this all so that Prinsco has a proper product family like it does with HydroStor and it needs to look like Prinsco?

Carl:

I don’t think that I’ve ever been involved in a project that was as collaborative and cohesive cross-functionally as this project. Oftentimes you’ve got engineering, you’ve got manufacturing and operations, and you’ve got sales. And oftentimes sales and engineering butt heads probably the most because they’re a different mind. And in this case, everybody was able to do a great job at seeing through the lens of the other cross-functional teams to appreciate the challenges and the opportunities. And you said it well, Judd, and you said you were very skeptical of the thermoforming process and you voiced that, but you also were patient to let the team learn. And I think the team did a great job at honoring your view of the market to deliver on what was important through your studies.

Jason Ahrenholz:

We had involvement of a lot of team members, a lot of seasoned team members at Prinsco, and being able to share the expertise from different areas, it really helped us bring this together much easier. And having those open discussions around concerns and being able to push back and it gets back to the relationships. Being able to stand up and say, “Yeah, this isn’t right for Prinsco. We’ve got to look at this differently.” It was definitely a collaborative effort.

Judd Efinger:

I think we’re all probably very different people. But I think what drove it was just mutual respect. I think we respect each other’s strengths and use those strengths to build bridges rather than build walls. And yeah. I think it’s been a special project in that way as well.

Brian:

It’s remarkable the level of ownership that all the team members, as we started small with a small group, as team members are brought in to support the more diverse activity that has to occur. Everyone on the Prinsco team came in and they executed as if it was their product that they were responsible for. The ownership level’s unbelievable.

Jason Ahrenholz:

I think bringing the right people in, having the right resources from Prinsco, but bringing them in at the right time and having them feel that level of ownership, being able to step in and add value to it, there’s a lot of stars that aligned throughout that project too. And that was evident, like I said, across the whole team.

Carl:

Like any new product launch, this particular product launch had some targets for the timeline. The product would get launched. One of them was a significant industry event to showcase the product. That was one milestone that we needed to achieve. The other is that this product is installed into the ground seasonally. Certain times a year, like the spring, summer and fall, it gets installed and not in the winter. So we had to make sure that we hit that timeline and it was critical to hit both the industry trade show as well as having product on the ground to have a successful installation season.

Brian:

And we’re going to talk through the balance of launching on time and figuring out ways to solve what happened if the product isn’t ready yet. And our approach there is to support Prinsco and having full scale prototypes, they can show clients, they can get client feedback earlier than injection molded product exists. So we’ll touch into that a little bit and we’ll share how we manage product launches even when they don’t go exactly to plan.

Judd Efinger:

If you remember, we had set the wastewater, big national wastewater show February or end of January ’22 as the launch of three chamber sizes as our primary. That is our first business plan. And we missed that by a full year. But in that realm of when life gives you lemon, make lemonade, we chose to take that year again to do it right, which was all the right reasons with our partners in their timing. But we used that time to go get all the state approvals and we had great success. You cannot install the product without those approvals. So that was interesting. Which leads really to maybe my challenge, which was what would we have done if we didn’t have that year to do the approvals? If we really did have the product in ’22, how would we have managed that inventory and sales model? So anyway, it’s fun to look back on that.

Brian:

And so much happened in that year. It wouldn’t have been possible. We’d be in a different state of mind today if that year was skipped somehow from a design and development standpoint.

Judd Efinger:

But some companies that just would’ve been a deal breaker. A lot of companies would’ve seen … I’ve worked for companies that were owned by private equity and missing a target like that would’ve been the end of the project. They would’ve ended the project because you didn’t hit your key milestone. I just know that to be true. So again, it just speaks to the commitment and patience to do it right that drives Prinsco’s success for 50 years.

Brian:

I think what’s important about that 20 year time stamp is that that’s four years into focused work and seven years since the start of the business plan. So that is pretty deep in the project.

Judd Efinger:

That’s sticktoitiveness.

Carl:

So here we are today. And I know this is a highly competitive market, so we certainly don’t want to get into details, but thinking about where we are today, what’s the perspective, Judd, do you feel like this has been a success? Are there challenges? Are you happy with the performance of what this team has done?

Judd Efinger:

Yeah. I think so. Again, I think if you stack it up against some of the other product launches at Prinsco, it will be … And I’m actually going to do that graph for our presentation, Jason to the ELT, but looking at some of the other products. And it will be the most successful two or three year launch. So since the product was launched in 2023. So the business plan, without speaking to specific numbers, the business plan was 10% market share in five years. And we’re well on our way to that target in year two, two and a half, depending on how you’re counting. All four products were just launched this spring. But since our initial product launch, we’re a year and a half year and three quarters into it, and we’re on target for that 10% market share, which is great. That’s awesome to hit those milestones. And we’ll hit it before the five-year mark. It’d be my guess. Which will feel good because that’s the business plan that we submitted for funding, and we had partners and owners of the company that we want to honor that commitment. So again, we’re on track for that. So super thankful for everyone on the team to get us on that path.

Carl:

Congratulations. That’s no small feat.

Jason Ahrenholz:

Yeah. Super exciting to be a part of this project. And like I said earlier, it’s been an awesome learning opportunity to be able to overcome everything that we went through, to be able to see the excitement of getting product out into customer’s hands, and being able to be exposed to it too. I think one piece that we didn’t really touch on yet, but the commitment to Prinsco launching the full family of chambers. Not just stepping into the market and kind of toying with it, but we’re jumping all in. We’re fully committed to it, and we want to have the product offering that really serves our customers as best they possibly can for all regions of the country. And so that was super fun to see too. But yeah. Being able to scale it to the different sizes, all the features that went with it, there was a lot of similarities, but a lot of differences. And being able to work through those things, being able to learn from our customers and how we approach the market, it’s been fun.

Judd Efinger:

And I think there’s great opportunity too. I think again, the commitment is really to the industry. The customers that are served in the on-site wastewater market. And there are many other products that we’ll be able to put R&D projects together for that allow us to expand and grow. So yeah. This really is … It’s a full commitment to the chamber business, but there’s many other peripheral products that we’ll have an opportunity to look at.

Carl:

We’ve talked a lot about the product, technical and market aspects of this product launch, but this last segment’s a little bit different. We’re talking about alignment between Prinsco and our company and their other partners that enabled us to be successful and how critical it was to have cultural and values alignment in the project.

Brian:

And what that alignment did for us is there’s some underlying tones I think you’ll hear, but what we experienced is the ability to challenge each other across businesses. And I think that’s pretty unique to have that close of a relationship and tied to culture to allow that to happen. We can challenge Prinsco, Prinsco can challenge us and the other partners the same effect.

Carl:

So we’re going to talk about that and then also we’re going to be sharing each of our takeaways from the project.

Jason Ahrenholz:

Prinsco has four values. Relationships, hard work, integrity and humility. I think those were instrumental in the approach that we had with this project. The integrity, making sure we’re doing it right, making sure that we’re going to be successful and not just taking the fast track or the easy way out. The relationships we’ve mentioned, the partnerships that we’ve had with outside vendors, tool makers. In relationship with you guys too. Being able to support this project that’s been huge. And without that … Not just a transactional relationship, but a true ownership from all parties to make sure that we’re being successful, that doesn’t happen without a deep, deep bond and understanding of what we’re trying to do. The humility piece, I think that’s been huge too, of being able to understand that we may not always be right, but taking the healthy conflict and really focusing on the goal of what are we trying to do?

Judd Efinger:

Because you have to have that humility when you’re embarking on a project of this size into a segment we really had no experience being in as a Prinsco, as a company. So you have to be humble. And to understand that you don’t know everything. And the market entry I think is supported by that core humility value.

Carl:

There’s no doubt Prinsco is well-recognized and known for exuding those values and it’s an honor for us to have been a part of it and to have that relationship with you guys personally as well as the business. It’s not very often that there are projects or people or companies that are operated that way and it’s pretty special. What would you tell yourself that now that you didn’t then, and if not yourself, what would you tell someone else that’s embarking on a program like this for the first time?

Jason Ahrenholz:

Be patient. Be patient. Don’t be willing to challenge the status quo. Don’t be willing to think outside the box and think innovatively. I think a lot of times we at Prinsco in other product, other markets too, we start a project with the end already in mind. We have some bias going into it. And that bias can stifle innovation pretty quickly. And so I think that’s been a great thing that I’ve learned throughout this project is keep that open mind, keep that open perspective and really make sure we’re striving for the right solution. But don’t always think that we have it all figured out.

Judd Efinger:

Yeah. I’m thinking back to my early career. I was a VP at a pretty young age, and there was just no way I had either the patience or the humility to work through this and nor did my company. Yeah. The reason I was a young executive is because our company had that young, aggressive mind. So just feeling and interpreting the patience and humility of Prinsco, sure it’s a piece of aging. We all hope we get more humble as we get older. But I think it’s really just feeling that energy and values from your company to drive a project. And that was essential, at least from my perspective. Is allowing that to carry the day.

Carl:

I’m really interested in what you’ve got.

Brian:

I hate looking back and thinking about what could be done differently or the situation, because it’s such a dynamic situation. Looking back, you can say something that’s so obvious, but it would be impossible at the time for it to happen. But I think I resonate with your patience and challenging the status quo because there’s times where we did that really well, and there’s times where we missed opportunities to do that. And in that moment, there’s so much opportunity to … Every time you do that, it slows it down a little bit and sometimes that speeds it up. It’s hard to know when’s the right time and when’s the wrong time to do that. And I think we did a decent job at balancing that, but that’s a thing. That piece is the hardest part.

Carl:

Yeah. I’d agree for sure. I think the patience is one, and then knowing when and how far to challenge a direction or a position or the status quo. And one of the toughest parts about this, and maybe all product development initiatives is it’s not a closed-form solution. You can’t just go and find a formula that is either right or wrong. These are all variable and there’s multiple components and there’s multiple right ways and there’s multiple wrong ways. So knowing where and how hard to push is … I don’t know that there’s ever a right answer, but I agree that from my observation, each team member did an exceptional job at managing that so that it was the right balance for the dynamics of the team and project.

And it wasn’t launched perfect. It was launched great. And that’s an excellent thing because if you launch it perfect, it’s never going to come out. But if you can find a way to launch it, great that’s when you’ve hit the mark.

Well, thank you so much for joining us and sharing your story, sharing our story of the program that we all embarked on together and that success that you had. I think there are a lot of learning lessons here for others who are embarking on large programs, or small for that matter, and there’s just a lot to be learned. So I really appreciate the humility and partnership and coming on this podcast and sharing those stories openly with us and those who tune in.

Judd Efinger:

Yeah. Thanks. It’s been fun.

Jason Ahrenholz:

Absolutely. Thank you.