From compelling idea to startling innovation
With assistance from MAGNET PDD engineers, an entrepreneur's original idea to eliminate leaking toilets became the first Level 5 innovation in toilet technology in more than 50 years
OverviewA few years ago, Walter Berry got a shock when he opened the water bill for his small vacation home in Arizona. No one had used the home for months—but the bill was more than $500! Berry, being very environmentally conscientious, undertook a serious investigation. Turns out, because the toilet had not been flushed for a long time, the rubber flapper that holds water in the tank had deteriorated, hardened and cracked, allowing a silent, constant flow of water right out of the tank and down the sewer. He also discovered that this was a lot more common than one might expect: toilets are responsible for nearly 85 percent of water leakage in residential plumbing systems. Flappers are easily degraded by toilet cleaning materials, and if a low-flow toilet flapper is replaced by a generic after-market flapper, the toilet ceases to be low-flow. The EPA estimates a silent leak in a toilet can waste 500 gallons of water a day and cost $1000 a year. With the Census Bureau estimating more than 222 million toilets in residential homes, one study estimates more than 11 million gallons of water a day are being wasted through toilet leaks each day. That is equivalent to the volume of water rushing over Niagara Falls in 2.2 hours. Berry, a born innovator and serial entrepreneur, saw an enormous opportunity he couldn't resist. He'd started half a dozen successful businesses over his long career so he had the required self-confidence. But this challenge was a little different from finding innovative ways to offer commercial insurance. Berry knew he would need some skilled assistance to tackle a problem like this. That's when he heard about MAGNET and the Cuyahoga County New Product Development Loan Fund. Berry submitted a proposal and quickly won funding that allowed him to bring his raw idea to MAGNET's crack engineering team. Approach"At first, I thought we wanted an in-line valve to measure how much water was going in. But we quickly discovered there were too many variables," Berry recalls. "I knew we had to look for the absolute root cause. In the end—the key was to pull the flapper out of the model and force ourselves to think outside the box." "This application was ripe for evolutionary trend analysis," said Dave Pierson, MAGNET Senior Design Engineer. "I looked at the patent landscape for toilet flappers over the last 50 years. In all that time there had only been Level 1 innovations. This problem called for a Level 5 innovation—a dramatic evolution like that from the block of ice to the electric refrigerator, or from the analog vinyl recording to the digital CD." Pierson worked with Berry for nine months, going through hundreds of design iterations before hitting on a concept that was both stunningly simple and eminently practical. Berry called it the Siphon Flush. Think about a submarine. Air makes a submarine go up and down. The siphon flush works on this very principle. The device is a simple reverse trap that blocks the flow of water with an air bubble. (The trap in your kitchen sink blocks the flow of sewer gases back into your house on the same principle.) The air bubble also keeps the plastic siphon device floating at the top of the tank of water. By depressing the device just slightly, water displaces the air bubble and creates a siphon, pushing water through the toilet. As the water level drops, the plastic siphon also drops, until it hits a predetermined height. Then it stops, and as the water flows away from it, a new air bubble is gulped into the siphon. Water flow is blocked again and the device floats up as the water level in the tank is reestablished. What blocks the water flow is an air bubble. An air bubble that is replaced at every flush. As a consequence, with the Siphon Flush, there is absolutely nothing that can possibly degrade or leak. "This is so outside the box its beyond comprehension," remarks Pierson. The design engineer developed dozens of prototypes using many different kinds of tools during the evolution process. He relied on the Goldfire Innovator engineering software package from Boston-based Invention Machine to analyze and adapt ideas from dozens of fields, including life-sciences. The software helped Pierson quickly and efficiently analyze technology trends and materials, validate concepts and anticipate future failure points, saving Berry both time and money during the crucial development phase. "We went through hundreds of ideas," recalls Berry. "But we would only go one or two steps down the path before we could see it was a dead end. Now Pierson and Berry have one of those working relationships where their ideas spark each other and they can sometimes finish each other's sentences. "Sometimes I would call Dave with an idea, and he'd say, 'I was just thinking about that. What about this?'" recalls Berry. "This is one of the great things about working with MAGNET. We already have some follow on ideas for aftermarket that we're working on." [Story continues below video...] EvolutionIn October 2008, Pierson and Berry took a demonstration model of the Siphon Flush in a transparent glass tank to the WaterSmart Innovations Conference and Expo in Las Vegas sponsored by the EPA and the Southern Nevada Water Authority. They say other exhibitors at the expo seemed to be dumbfounded by what they saw at the Siphon Flush exhibit. "The show was a great validation," says Pierson with satisfaction. "We had people just coming over and staring at it trying to figure out how it worked—especially the toilet flapper manufacturers!" The product will go into production in 2009 and will be targeted especially towards communities in the arid Southwest. Berry and Pierson are both geared up for the enormous potential of the product they have created. ImpactAmerican Innovative Products has received advance orders from all regions of the U.S. for more than 17,000 units of the Siphon Flush device. Production began in March 2009. The first units began shipping in April 2009. Since there are an estimated 240 million toilets in the U.S., and since water conservation has become a critical issue for municipalities and water authorities in the West, Southwest and Southeast, Berry believes the potential for Siphon Flush sales is enormous. The company estimates first year sales at $7,500,000; second year sales at $13,000,000; and third-year sales at $22,000,000. Even more important to Berry is the device’s potential to save literally billions of gallons of water from being needlessly wasted. Testimonial"MAGNET's engineers look for solutions, not road blocks. In my other businesses, I often found that everybody had a reason why you can't do something. With MAGNET's engineers, everything is open—nothing is closed." Walter G. Berry, CEO, American Innovative Products "Sometimes I would call Dave with an idea, and he'd say, 'I was just thinking about that. What about this?'" recalls Berry. "This is one of the great things about working with MAGNET. We already have some follow on ideas for aftermarket that we're working on." Walter G. Berry, CEO, American Innovative Products |
