Company Background
Royal Elite Candles, established by Artist Elena Cristina Cojocariu, creates unique hand poured and carved candles on the North Coast of Ireland since 2016. Each candle is, handcrafted in a range of beautiful and bright colours with original design features using high quality paraffin P-2 food grade, Wick, Candle moulds, Candle dye, Candle varnish and decorative elements.
Due to their expanding customer base, Cristina is keen to use Computer Aided Design (CAD) Design for manufacturing of a new mould for a new candle products to add to her product range.
Challenge
The main barrier facing Cristina is her lack of skills in 3D Computer Aided Design in order to realise her vision. As a result, Cristina explored possible solutions to overcome this challenge.
Solution
Cristina approached the North West Regional College (NWRC) who were able to support her through the Innovate US programme, funded by Department for the Economy (DfE), which equated to 30 hours of mentoring support from David McDaid, Co-ordinator in Product Design.
The one to one mentoring support and upskilling focused on specific and relevant CAD theory, building of 2D parts and 3D solid model creations from concept designs to 3D manufacturable mould parts.
Impact
Following completion of the project, Cristina acquired the relevant CAD skills to develop rapid prototyping procedures to create both a new product and then to design mould negatives to dip in silicon to create the product itself. The final design is locally inspired which will be particularly attractive to the tourist and export markets, and to date REC Elite Candles has increased sale by 5% as a direct result of launching the new candles to the retail market.
Cristina is keen to continue to work with NWRC perusing an Innovation Voucher and the resources available at the college, including CNC milling machines, when the new Product Design Centre opens to develop further new product designs for candle moulds for new candles.
