Periodic Reporting for period 1 - GUARDIAN (Eco-friendly smart doors for non-residential building fire protection)
Periodo di rendicontazione: 2020-01-01 al 2020-04-30
There is a growing demand for building green or sustainable buildings. New building designs often feature open spaces, with less barriers such as doors and walls, and use new construction methods. There are also more combustible materials in our furniture and other content. These changes cause fires in buildings to grow faster than ever before and become more hazardous. Although the European Union (EU) has made many important strides to improve the sustainability of buildings, those strides have sidestepped one of the oldest and most menacing threats daily life: fire safety.
This project aims to put into the market connected fire rated interior doors (30 mins, 45 min and 60 minutes resistance) based on ecological materials, with no risk of toxic air emissions. Besides, the door will have the possibility to be integrated to the IoT platform of smart houses for specific market niches.
For building owners and constructors, GUARDIAN will allow accomplishing with fire safety but also building sustainability existing and upcoming regulations and trends and, doing it at an affordable price. For citizens, this project will enforce their safety at domestic and non-domestic buildings. For the European Commission, this project will offer a new product in line with the demands of fire safety and firefighters associations and platforms.
The objectives of the action include: 1) The analysis of the manufacturing flow, company organisation, metrics, materials, technical risks and industrialisation strategy; 2) The development of the value proposition, commercialisation strategy and freedom to operate analysis; 3) The financial forecast, deployment costs and funding structure during and after the phase 2 project.
This project aims to put into the market connected fire rated interior doors (30 mins, 45 min and 60 minutes resistance) based on ecological materials, with no risk of toxic air emissions. Besides, the door will have the possibility to be integrated to the IoT platform of smart houses for specific market niches.
For building owners and constructors, GUARDIAN will allow accomplishing with fire safety but also building sustainability existing and upcoming regulations and trends and, doing it at an affordable price. For citizens, this project will enforce their safety at domestic and non-domestic buildings. For the European Commission, this project will offer a new product in line with the demands of fire safety and firefighters associations and platforms.
The objectives of the action include: 1) The analysis of the manufacturing flow, company organisation, metrics, materials, technical risks and industrialisation strategy; 2) The development of the value proposition, commercialisation strategy and freedom to operate analysis; 3) The financial forecast, deployment costs and funding structure during and after the phase 2 project.
Technical feasibility. From the technical perspective, we found that the use of the proposed materials would not lead to the obtention of a 100% eco-friendly product, while the fire resistance would be somehow equivalent to some other materials in the market. The most relevant aspect for our company is that the manufacturing process would not be the typical in door manufacturing, since the tannin foam needs to be injected instead of cut and pressed. The injection process is something usual in the chemical industry but not in door manufacturing. We would need to reshape our production processes, acquire specialised machinery and recruit specialised staff.
Commercial feasibility. We re-estimated our production and selling costs according to the updated materials bill and manufacturing process, which led to an increase by 50% with respect to our initial forecast. Our current commercial focus on the residential market is not aligned with the features of the product, since there is no specific regulation regarding the compulsory use of interior fire-resistant doors in the residential market. Thus, from the commercial perspective this would require a shift in our commercial strategy, targeting architects, constructors and hotel chains in the non-residential market.
Financial feasibility. We have estimated the financial forecast for the 4 initial years after the GURDIAN door is ready to be marketed. By the end of 2025 we would reach 7,500 doors sold, with cumulated revenues of 9.97M€ and cumulated profit of 1.66M€. By 2025, we would almost recover the investment with ROI of -0.11. For the project implementation, we would require 835.6 k€. After the project, our main investment would be the new production line to deal with the tannin foam injection.
Commercial feasibility. We re-estimated our production and selling costs according to the updated materials bill and manufacturing process, which led to an increase by 50% with respect to our initial forecast. Our current commercial focus on the residential market is not aligned with the features of the product, since there is no specific regulation regarding the compulsory use of interior fire-resistant doors in the residential market. Thus, from the commercial perspective this would require a shift in our commercial strategy, targeting architects, constructors and hotel chains in the non-residential market.
Financial feasibility. We have estimated the financial forecast for the 4 initial years after the GURDIAN door is ready to be marketed. By the end of 2025 we would reach 7,500 doors sold, with cumulated revenues of 9.97M€ and cumulated profit of 1.66M€. By 2025, we would almost recover the investment with ROI of -0.11. For the project implementation, we would require 835.6 k€. After the project, our main investment would be the new production line to deal with the tannin foam injection.
Our initial value proposition was the following: Unique eco-friendly fire door in the market using bio-based eco-friendly materials in its core, lighter, thinner, cheaper, better sealed, with a smart lock system and accomplishing fire retardant requirements according to the standard EN 16034 to achieve EI 60 level and with an acoustic absorption of 36 dB.
In terms of environmental impact, we planned to get:
- The Environmental Product Declaration (EPD), an independently verified and registered document that communicates transparent and comparable information about the life-cycle environmental impact of products.
- The FSC label, applicable to the wood and cork used in the doors.
- The EU ecolabel, to be further analysed, as a label to show environmental excellence.
In terms of environmental impact, we planned to get:
- The Environmental Product Declaration (EPD), an independently verified and registered document that communicates transparent and comparable information about the life-cycle environmental impact of products.
- The FSC label, applicable to the wood and cork used in the doors.
- The EU ecolabel, to be further analysed, as a label to show environmental excellence.