Weighing people who are critically ill, have suffered a stroke or are immobile can be difficult, but it’s a basic necessity in hospitals and medical centres - to monitor a patient’s progress or establish the correct medication levels.

However, for many NHS staff this can result in injury. Manual handling injuries can often result in long periods of sick leave and for others it can even lead to the end of their career. Back pain and other musculoskeletal disorders account for approximately 40% of all sickness absence in the NHS, resulting in a cost in the region of £400 million each year.

Marsden Weighing Group - market leader in weighing applications in the UK - knew they could respond to this need and wanted to develop a chair scale with an integrated lifts/assist mechanism, to aid both the patient and nurse, in this increasingly common task.

As a long-term innovation partner, Marsden naturally turned to Pd-m to help realise their ambition. The problem was how to incorporate a pneumatic lift mechanism into a chair, that can then disengage for accurate weighing? And ensure its affordable, robust, easy-to-use, clean, and meet medical device regulations.

To answer these requirements and fulfil Marsden’s objectives, we mapped out a robust product development process. To define the exact parameters, the initial Discovery phase included: Early-stage proof of concept prototyping, feedback groups, concept generation, design development, computer aided design and focus group testing.

Having a really good grasp of what the product needed to do and look-like, we moved into the Product Development cycle with confidence. It was clear Marsden wanted to create a top-of-the-range product, but it also needed to be affordable - we had to find ways to keep the unit cost down whilst retaining its functionality and aesthetic appeal.

All the final components arrived in time for Marsden to reveal their new chair scale at the National Back Exchange conference to a great reception (and lots of positive feedback).

Work packages