Machine Development

Objective

Off-the-shelf dispensing equipment couldn't handle hair dye chemistry. The oxygen barriers weren't strong enough, the chemical compatibility was wrong, and nothing on the market was built for the precision eSalon's formulations required. So I built it from scratch.

This became the most technically demanding — and most personally meaningful — project of my career.

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What I've done

1. Precision Multi-Channel Dispensing System Engineering

2. Chemical Compatibility & Oxygen Barrier Systems

3. Control Logic & Hardware-Software Integration

4. Manufacturing & Retail Hardware Variants

5. Quality Control & Validation Systems

6. Retail Experience Design (in collaboration with ALM Projects)

Creative Process

Research: Analyzed existing dispensing technologies against hair dye chemistry requirements — oxygen sensitivity, viscosity ranges, contamination risk, and long-term seal integrity. Nothing available met the bar.

Conceptual Design & Prototyping: Built mechanical concepts for multi-channel dispensing from first principles. Prototyped and tested until the chemistry stopped fighting the hardware.

Engineering Development: Developed full CAD models, electrical schematics, and manufacturing drawings across every component and assembly.

Testing & Validation: Conducted extensive cycling tests simulating years of operational use. Refined against real performance data, not assumptions.

Retail Experience: Brought in ALM Projects to take the engineering platform somewhere I couldn't have gotten alone. What they did with the aesthetic and user experience genuinely changed how I think about machine design. I had no idea that was possible.

Manufacturing & Deployment: Established production processes and deployed systems in manufacturing facilities and CVS retail kiosks nationally.

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Results

10x improvement in dispensing accuracy. US Patent 10532335. Allure Best of Beauty recognition.

The dispensers became eSalon's core competitive advantage — and the foundation for the automated manufacturing line that followed. Thanks to the programmers at eSalon who took my initial control logic and built it into something far beyond what I'd imagined.

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Conclusion

I realized early that adapting to existing hardware would mean compromising on chemistry. The right call was to rebuild from first principles — which took real R&D investment and real conviction to push through.

That decision paid off. And working with ALM taught me that engineering constraints and genuine creativity aren't in conflict — the best hardware lives at that intersection. I've carried both lessons into every custom machine I've built since.

The dispensing system that came out of this project was deployed inside the automated manufacturing line we built from scratch — and validated against rigorous documentation and quality protocols.