Company: Podimetrics

Project Description: The Podimetrics Sole Defender is a floor mat that can help detect the onset of foot ulcers in patients with diabetes.  I was hired as an independent contractor to improve upon the alpha prototype and design the beta prototype mat for clinical trials.  The main design goals were to reduce the cost of the prototype and the complexity and assembly time.  Through my design and supply chain management, I was able to achieve both of these goals.

Process: Starting with the alpha prototype, I helped to assemble and debug the units to get a sense of the issues that I needed to solve.  This gave me ideas for how to improve upon many of the systems and manufacturing methods in order to achieve the primary goals of reducing costs and complexity.  I built a number of mockups, and showed different design configurations to the team in sketches and CAD.  While designing the architecture of the mat, I simultaneously sourced components, both off the shelf and custom, to build the supply chain.  In the construction of this device, I worked with variety of materials including plastic, foam, thermoformed textiles and sheet metal.