Fiber-optic equipment manufacturer Clearfield has announced a new design for their CraftSmart Fiber Protection Vault that will result in a 67 percent reduction of costs associated with freight, transportation, handling, and storage.

The design for the product, which was created by Clearfield’s internal team, allows the vaults to be shipped without being assembled, according to Clearfield’s Jan. 22 announcement. The company said the protection vault’s new design also eliminates supply chain constraints and provided a 300 percent improvement in the utilization of inventory space.

Kevin Morgan, the Chief Marketing Officer at Clearfield, said the company has been working hard to improve their supply chain process “so our community broadband customers have the products each need when needed, so they can meet the deadlines and requirements for expanding fiber broadband” as part of the Broadband, Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program.

“When we decided to bring the design and manufacturing of our new vault in-house, we looked at the opportunity holistically and saw the untapped potential to address the high cost associated with traditional designs by using a fundamentally new approach,” he said.

According to Clearfield, the new protection vault can be assembled in the field within five minutes, the company’s announcement said.