VIP s.r.l., a 14 employees company, operates in the field of aesthetic
devices since 1970. Its main field of interest is the design and distribution
of electric-aesthetic appliances, as muscular stimulators, directed
to professional users. Our company manufactures and distributes electric
aesthetic devices addressed to professional users. It has a good knowledge
of the kind of equipment requested by the market, joined to a great
experience on the effect of electric stimulation on human body. We have
some experience with the design of analog circuits, but up to now the
design process of new appliances has been performed in strict collaboration
with external consultants. Our products are still sold all over the
world, but once more due to marketing strategies.
The company exports world wide to resellers with particular concern
to Great Britain, Hong Kong, India, Portugal , Russia. Besides the company
exploits and favors a franchising scheme.
Our portfolio includes different kinds of electric neuromuscular stimulators,
photo therapy equipment, and dedicated machines for some special aesthetic
treatment like peeling and hair removal.
As stated above, all our equipment were based on analogue electronic
circuits.
The AE allowed the design of an advanced electronic neuro-muscular
stimulator to integrate three different products of the First User into
a single equipment and to packge , them in several different combinations
without any functionality loss, and with better satisfaction of customers
requirements. The first use of microcontroller and SMT technologies
provides the new product with the following advantages:
- Introduction of an LCD visualisation and a smart card reader, which
provides our customers with new features and a better looking for
our stimulator, an issue quite important in our particular market
- Reduced technical assistance costs, both from the point of view
of personnel training as for spare parts warehouse reduction. Moreover,
self test features of the new device allow self test and self diagnosis
of the equipment itself.
- Production cost fall due to the merging of the market share of
three different appliances.
- Customers training time reduction, by mean of an intuitive graphical
interface.
- Increased flexibility, through software customization and strong
defense against intrusion and reverse engineering
- Reduced time to market for new similar appliances, obtained using
a modular approach for the design of the target of the AE.
The AE duration was 9 month, for a total funding of 57.25 kEUR.
Expected break-even time is about 6 months, return on FUSE investment
can be estimated more than 15 times in 5 years and more than 5 times
considering the global investment.
