Ep. 11: Inside Product Design and Innovation at Storemasta

In this episode of Chemical Safety at Work, hosts Mel and Pat sit down with Nick Schatz, Storemasta's innovative Product Designer, to explore how new products are designed to meet the specific needs of businesses handling dangerous goods in Australia. 

Nick shares insights into the entire design process—from market research to prototyping—and how Storemasta balances innovation with compliance to Australian standards. 

Discover the latest safety-enhancing innovations, like outdoor battery storage solutions and sliding doors for high-wind environments, and learn how customer feedback shapes product improvements. 

Whether you're a safety officer, product designer, or business owner, this episode offers valuable takeaways on enhancing dangerous goods safety and staying ahead of emerging risks.

Tune in for a behind-the-scenes look at Storemasta’s commitment to quality, compliance, and user experience in dangerous goods storage.

Transcript

Pat: Hello and welcome back to the Chemical Safety at Work podcast. Today Mel and I are in Sydney with our product designer, Nick Schatz. Nick, can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about what your job involves? 

Nick: Yeah, as you said, I'm product designer at Storemasta. It's a role that encompasses the full scale of a design process right from market research, client engagement all the way to product development, prototyping and delivering product.

Pat: So you're developing and working on new products to add to the range as well as making improvements to current Storemasta offerings

Nick: Yes. I, try to split my time up between the two of those sort of endeavours. You go through seasons of doing both, but, at the moment, definitely looking to innovate new products and get some new things to market.

Mel: Awesome. And how long have you been with the team?

Nick: For almost a year now. 

Pat: Tell us a bit about your journey. Yeah, I came into the role as a junior product designer. Not much experience in the workforce, but blessed with, a great team here. And I've learned really quickly on the job about the industry. So it's been a hands on job so far.

Pat: You studied industrial design. Is that right? 

Nick: That's it. Yeah. Product design it's called - it's very similar to industrial - at UTS here in Sydney. S

Mel: So, how do you identify the specific needs and challenges of organizations handling dangerous goods in Australia? 

Nick: It Often starts with speaking directly to our users. That's the best way that we can find problem spaces within the industry and identify risks that need to be controlled.

And so yeah, that might look like surveys, sending out market surveys, emails, but also staying really connected to the sales team because obviously they have that face to face connection every day with our users. And so speaking to them and wondering what are customers after? What are their problems, what are their questions? That's how we learn most. 

Mel: And that's quite an iterative process, isn't it? So, you're going back regularly through the design process? 

Nick: For sure. Yeah. We will often have an inquiry, build a product based on that, and then send it back to that customer to see if that's the sort of approach that they were after. And then, you know, it might work or it might not, but as you said, you have to go through that a number of times to get it right. 

Pat: Can you walk us through the design process for a new product at Storemasta and what are the critical safety features that you focus on? 

Nick: The first step is to make sure that whatever we're building will be compliant with Australian Standards. We have to identify what class of dangerous goods will be stored and then target a certain sump capacity, select appropriate materials for containment, ventilation, signage. And once we have that figured out then we can start working on USPs and features that will deliver efficiency for our users and also benefit from a user experience perspective. 

Mel: How do you balance innovation with compliance when designing products for dangerous goods storage?

Nick: Yeah, so complying to Australian Standards is always our first priority. And then after that we can focus on innovating efficient products and products that will deliver a great user experience for our customers that can really address those problem spaces that we identify. 

Pat: so, customers being able to trust in the product that it's going to deliver, that safety and reliability is coming first.

Nick: Yeah. Manufacturing in-house is a big benefit for that. Our production team really pride themselves on using the best quality in CNC automation machinery. And yeah, a couple of years ago we partnered with Armada, who are seen as world leaders in that space. We also have a real skilled labour force in-house. We have programmers, engineers all on site ensuring that there's quality smart engineering going into those products.

Mel: Right. And we have a quality control process in place as well. 

Mel: How do you keep up with the changing regulatory landscape in Australia, and how does this influence your product designs? 

Nick: Staying in touch with the peak body, it's really important we subscribe to the updates in regulations and standards. By attending events and seminars we can stay on top of emerging risks and emerging demands within the industry.

Pat: What recent innovations have you integrated into Storemasta's products that significantly enhanced safety for users? 

Nick: Recently, we identified a user need in controlled environments for outdoor battery storage. This allows people to store large capacity batteries outdoors in a weatherproof, temperature controlled environment, significantly reducing the risk of overheating. Another one was the requirement for storage solutions in high wind environments, where heavy metal doors can pose a risk for the users, and so we have a solution of sliding doors, which, yeah, significantly reduce that risk for customers.
The feedback has been really great. 

Pat: What sort of product is that in? 

Nick: That's a two IBC store for outdoor storage. We've had a recent integration of flame guard panelling within the air vents of our battery cabinets. So, when they feel a certain temperature within the battery cabinet, they expand and cover the air vent, stopping the flow of oxygen into that cabinet.

Mel: In the last month, we launched our new gas range. What sort of benefits can the customer see from that? 

Nick: Yeah, this is a really great range providing a modular solution for our customers. It's really easy to swap between shelving and chain restraints, which are needed for both gas cylinders or gas bottle storage. And there have been other additions, such as ramps made as a standard across that whole range, as well as extra secure pins within the hinges, providing extra security and safety for those doors.

Mel: And those cages have bolt down feet. What sort of benefit does that provide the customer with? 

Nick: Yeah, so that adds a lot of stability to the cabinet and provides a really easy way for users to bolt their cabinets down because they can get pretty heavy with a few cylinders in them for sure. It can be it can pose a massive risk. 

Pat: And you mentioned ramps as well. That's so people can wheel up the cylinder on a trolley into the cabinet and unload?

Nick: Yeah, exactly. Obviously you don't want to be, lifting a trolley full of heavy cylinders up. And so having a ramp system across all the products in that range is, a big benefit to our users.

Mel: It's a lot more ergonomic. 

Pat: How do you foresee the future of dangerous goods storage evolving, particularly in terms of safety and regulatory compliance? 

Nick: I see technology being a massive factor in the evolving of dangerous goods storage, bringing smart technologies into chemical inventory and storage capacities and monitoring for risk. It's definitely the way that other industries have trended and so I think it won't be any different. 

Mel: And do you think the pace is increasing now with that new technology coming about? 

Nick: Absolutely. Yeah. I feel like there's a real demand for change in the industry, given the consequences of emerging risks such as batteries and new forms of energy storage. 

Pat: Especially following some of the significant events that we've seen happen this year. We saw the fire in Victoria a couple of months back, which is just kind of an example of what can go wrong. 

Mel: Can you share an example of how feedback from customers or the market led to a product improvement? 

Nick: Yeah, so we've had our battery cabinets released to the market for a year or so now. A couple months ago we had a customer reach out who loved the cabinet, but they sent us a photo and it was a complete mess with their cables everywhere throughout the cabinet. They demanded a solution for that and so we came up with a prototype, sent it out to them. And now it's a standard across our battery cabinets. To have these shelves with integrated cable management systems keeps the cabinet safer and tidier. 

Pat: Based on your experience, what should work health and safety offices prioritize when selecting dangerous good storage solutions?

Nick: They've got to prioritize products that are compliant to Australian Standards. A lot of products will be made overseas and compliant to different standards that aren't as strict as the ones we have here. And yeah, Australian made products with Australian materials are often your best bet. They can look out for signifiers of the manufacturing processes like welding seams. Welded products are always stronger and more reliable than cabinets that have been bolted or glued together. 

Mel: What are some common mistakes that organizations make when it comes to storing dangerous goods, and how can those mistakes be avoided? 

Nick: we often say to look out for mixed classes of chemicals in the same cabinet, or cabinets too close to ignition sources. This is really just because staff all the way through organisations are often not trained at the same level as the WHS reps or the people at the top.

Pat: How can some of those issues be overcome? 

Nick: I think a lot of organisations get overwhelmed by dangerous goods storage and the amount that they have to do on site. It's best just to start with solutions to get your products segregated and off the floor. Seeking professional advice is always a great place to start, but within an organization, it's about training, clear signage and regular inspections.

Pat: In those regular inspections, they're going to hopefully identify any issues, rectify the issues, and then come up with a solution to make sure that they're not happening again. So if a band or a cabinet is being overloaded beyond the capacity of chemical storage, or as you say, something's been placed too close to an ignition source that's going to be resolved.

Nick: Absolutely. and everyone throughout the business, or everyone who is making contact with those products and those dangerous goods need to be in those conversations. 

Mel: What new trends or technologies in product design are you most excited about, especially concerning dangerous good storage? 

Nick: A big trend you see in product design outside of the industry would be, designing for modularity, say, modular furniture products that are designed to be multi-purpose.
I think that would be a really exciting thing to bring to the industry. 

Mel: Is that like circular economy of products? 

Nick: Yeah, absolutely. Having an idea of what the product will be at the end of its lifecycle is definitely a great thing to think about when designing, but also that ties into sustainability and designing for durability and also reducing waste throughout that process, which is really what the production team tries to embody with lean manufacturing. It's about reducing waste, reducing unnecessary handling throughout that process because at the end of the day, that can get the products faster to the customer and at a better price as well. 

Pat: So, in the design process, you're thinking about ways that you can design these products in order to reduce material waste, time waste and add modularity as well as reducing the harm to the environment. And I guess potentially space saving and cost cutting for them if something has multiple purposes. 

Mel: So what does a typical day in your role look like. 

Nick: A lot of my role is about communicating our products to our customers through the website, bringing the products to life through renders, connecting the departments from engineering to marketing to sales, increasing that communication and making sure that we're all on board with what our what our goals are.

Mel: That's often a pretty common problem with a lot of innovation teams, is just getting that alignment between different departments. 

Nick: Yeah, there's a lot of project management involved in my role, whether that's engaging certain people, engaging R&D teams or DG experts, subject matter experts. 

Pat: Where do you say Storemasta heading in the next few years?

Nick: I think Storemasta will definitely be expanding into new markets, expanding into new industries, getting smarter with our technology and our storage solutions. As a company we'll always be focusing on reducing risk and improving efficiencies for organizations. We want to see more awareness. We want to see dangerous goods management made easier. And ultimately we want to see less incidents involving dangerous goods.

Pat: Thanks for joining us in the podcast studio today, Nick. It's been awesome to hear about your journey and the work that you're doing at Storemasta. And, exciting to hear about some of the ways that Storemasta's offerings will be evolving in the future. 

Mel: Yeah, it's been great. Thanks so much for joining us. Hopefully you'll join us again.

Nick: Looking forward to next time. Thanks, guys.