Much nothing about ado

Well a little while back I posted my first post in just over a year. As I said I've been quite busy.

I've been working on a couple of toys, fun, challenging (First time I've worked on toys) tight budgets, shot deadlines. Always good to learn about new things.

I gave a work related learning workshop at Richard Lander School for the year 10 pupils studying Design Technology, resistant materials and I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed that. Those young folk really got to grips with some model making, they also had really great ideas, but perhaps most encouraging of all, they really understood how design has created many problems for our society but how design also will deliver some answers to some serious commercial, social and environmental issues.

I've been working on a long standing consumer product design project, helping James Williams of Keebunga get ever closer to bringing his waterproof car key case to market. With budgets getting tighter and funding being ever more difficult to acquire, it's been a long haul but the end is finally in sight. Just about to receive final pre-production samples and the toolmaker ran into some difficulties. Thankfully they've spotted the error, which was too high a barrel pressure on the injection moulding machine, so a couple of mould tweaks and another run this Saturday means James is on the cards for receiving samples on Tuesday 17th August. After some pressure testing with help from the very nice chaps at AP Valve in Helston, its off to do some field trials (shouldn't that be sea trials?). Some product photography from the very lovely Anj at Andrea Michele Photography, in Truro. (OK I'm biased, she's my missus), a bit of coding to the website by Jump Media, a bit of graphic design for the website layout and then let the sales begin (much nervously finger crossing).

I've been doing some SEO work on my own website and experimenting with graphic layouts, though still not happy with it, (I doubt Ill every be happy with it to be truly honest). I had most of the test re-written for me by the very excellent copymonkey company in Bude, owned by Martin Dorey, who has himself written a cracking book called 'The Campervan Cookbook' where Martin shares his insight and skill in the art of two burner hob culinary creations.

On and off I've been working on a EV (Electric Vehicular) concept with some help from the very tallentd concept artist, Phil Pendlebury of Sursurus Art. More on this at some point in the hopefully not too distant future.

Is there anything else?

Oh yes. I'm happy to report that the delivery of the first 10,000 Frontier stoves have been delivered to Shelterbox, to help those affected by some of the most terrible natural disasters in Haiti, Pakistan, Chile and others. More stoves are on the way.

On a personal note, I was particularly pleas at how well the project went. Straight from Drawings to production standard. No changes where necessary. We worked hard to produce a specification on the Frontier stove that would ensure repeatable and economical manufacture. I would like to say and give a big thank you to Matt, Jeanette and Dan of Gait International who did so much to help communicate with the manufacturer and ensure product arrived on time and to budget.

Design Thinking. Who owns it?

I read a comment on another blog recently from an engineer who objected to designers wanting to “own” design thinking as if were a special skill only they (designers) posses.

I feel the commentator was justified in feeling that design thinking is being attempted to be owned, but from reading and participating in many debates on design thinking, I don’t think it is designers trying to hog the limelight.

True Many designers have commented that to be a true design thinker you need to be a designer, but I disagree. Even as children we design and everything we see, touch and experience has been designed. The question is, “is it good design?”

I am a mechanical engineer turned industrial designer. I don’t think designers are trying to own some esoteric process. In fact much has been debated that corporate, business and finance types are trying to own design and use it as the next breakthrough competitive edge.

The debate goes further into the differences between finance oriented thinking, where shareholder value is most important, and design oriented thinking is as the article suggests more people, solution, emotion oriented thinking.

Having the world witness the successes of design oriented companies (or design oriented at least at face value) seen a surge in profits in recent years, some are heralding design thinking as being the saviour of business.

Many designers protest that those would prostitute the art, dilute the very essence of design and devalue it.

It is however folly to think that design oriented thinking or finance oriented thinking alone can make any company successful. Any successful business is a combination of finely balanced and optimised parameters, (perhaps it’s the engineers thinking that will rule then?) working in harmony.

For some time the design industry has levied complaint at education saying that graduates have little or no commercial understanding. Now there is complaint that business doesn’t have enough design understanding.

In truth everything is designed and engineered and of course financed. Be that a business process, a service, a product of some advertising graphic. Where those designs embody the four behaviours of a designer

Inquisitive; where question after question is asked, (often very stupid ones but nonetheless effective by process of iteration and elimination).

Empathic; where designers go beyond simple user centred design study or focus groups and actually submerge themselves in the world of the consumer; much like a method actor would when preparing for a role in a play or film.

Lateral thinking; where designers often meld ideas not just from one sector but often make the most obscure connections between materials, mechanisms, functions and most importantly, people.

Passion; designers are sickeningly passionately to an idea and give up their whole sense of self to move an idea forward into realisation.

Merged with sound business reasoning (the fifth behavior of design thinking then) there will be success if that design is good. However we all know there are good design, good engineering, and good business and there is also the bad... sometime even the downright ugly.

***'Design orientation' and its derivitives is a phrase/s coined by Raymond Pirouz

Pay What you Want or Get What You Pay For?

An interesting debate has been sparked over on Twitter about the merits or demerits perhaps of PWYW by C Sven Johnson of reBang and nithinkd (is he the coolest looking guy on that Enfield or what?) A debate which I will be following with a great deal of interest.
What is PWYW? You may well ask. Well sadly its one of those acronyms like WYSIWYG or FYI for Pay What You Want.

So what is PWYW? Well it’s basically telling your clients that your fee is whatever they are willing to pay. Now you may be thinking that the heck are you talking about man... that's plain crazy, but think about it for a moment...

PWYW has been used successfully for quite some time now in the realm of software downloads. One company reports that whilst most take the software for free, about 10% pay the recommended price; there is a small group of 4% who pay what they believe the software is worth to them for the utility it provides. The end result is that the company earns more than if they had priced their software to be in line with their competitors.

Another example of where the customer can Pay What you Want is eBay. A very different business model, but shows clearly a way of finding the price equilibrium for demand versus supply.

But your in the industrial design sector right... how could you possibly let the client determine the price… you would get 'ripped off' for sure. What if your going rate is let’s say, £30.00 per hour, but your client is willing to pay £50.00. On a small two week project, that could be an extra £2,000.00 helping keep the re-po man away from the front door.

On the other hand, let’s say your £30.00 rate has gone unfulfilled for a couple of lean months... a real possibility in these slower economic times. What would you say to 'some crazy inventor' who can only afford to spend a £1,000 on getting some design work done so he can make his pitch to potential investors? Do you turn him away and slug it out on the doorstep with the re-po man over your 50" Sony flat panel? Or do you say, "hey maybe if I give this guy a brake, I can pay for the TV and he can present to his investors... maybe he'll even comeback with some more cash and I can make that car payment too"

Well both of the above situations have happened to me... even the re-po man bit, though I didn't have to slug it out with him as actually he was quite a nice guy and bought me a little more time with my creditors which allowed me to pay off what I owed without any serious implications.
In the first case, my client discussed terms and conditions with me, he offered more than the tendered amount in exchange for 'on demand' service as he required a fast turnaround working in the automotive sector for such clients as GM, Aston Martin, Bentley, Rolls-Royce et.al

In the second instance, my client (James Williams of Keebunga) was an 'inventor' with a great idea, but no idea about the cost of developing a product. At that time I had a lull after a storm of work. Liking James's ideas and his general demeanour, I decided that I could help him perhaps get his idea a little further along and help me keep the cash flow looking healthy. The premise on which I offered my services as I did at one third of my rate (my rate isn't £30.00 per hour in case your wondering... you'll have to commission me to find that out), was that should I have full rate work, it would take precedence.

Over the course of the last year, my first 'premium rate' client has continued to use my services on a number of projects, whilst James and I re-negotiated various deals to suit his changing needs. On one occasion I did the work 'for free' to be billed at some undetermined date (OK, not actually free then). When Keebunga needed to move more quickly in order to meet criteria for a government grant and investors we agreed a higher more normal rate.

The end result is that Keebunga managed to get a product developed at an affordable price. James Williams says "Had it not been for Buff offering their services at a price that matched my budget, Keebunga would never have come to fruition". With product about to come to market, an investment plan in place and future product releases planned, Buff has already been selected for to design and develop these new projects.

So you see, it's not only the banks and mortgage lenders that can get creative with money. Only is your aim is to stash the cash or help a fledgling company come to life? I suppose there may well be some truth in the old saying 'As you sow, so shall you reap'

The genius that is Kenny Rodgers

Yes, that Kenny Rodgers, the famed country and western singer. "Why genius?" You say. Well because he gives good business advice in his 1978 hit "The Gambler"*. The chorus line beginning with "You got to know when to fold 'em, know when to hold 'em, know when to walk away, know when to run"

The reason I mention this now is because in the last couple of days I have "walked away" from business, rather than get embroiled in something we are not equipped to do to the standard that our clients should expect of us, or in the second case we don't want to design a tool which we believe won't work for the client and would affect both our reputation and client's reputation too.

In the first case, we were presented with a product design project that has a large graphic design and print element. This not being our core competence, and not wishing to simply subcontract the work out thus raising the clients costs, we decided to forward to work on to a competitor. Now some may think that's just crazy but think about it for a moment.

If I had taken on the work, it's doubtful first of all that after all the time spent doing cost analysis and quoting, the price would more than likely have been uncompetitive if the project where to be outsourced, wasting my time, the subcontractors time and worst of all, the client time.

If I had elected to do the work in-house in order to price competitively, the likely outcome of winning the order would be out of control costs as the project would no doubt take longer due to the lack of in house experience and probably run over budget and past schedule... not good for one's reputation!

In the second case this week of knowing "when to walk away" we turned down a long standing enquiry to design a tool for a medical device manufacturer. At Buff Design, we don't just simply design products, but we design entire product lifecycles, including manufacturing processes and equipment.

The story goes back to last August, when we were approached to help solve a manufacturing issue with a medical device production. The company was having to scrap more than 60% of its production to non-conformance issues. We flew over to the client's site to take a look first hand at the production process and quickly concluded that the work holding that had been specified was simply not working as it should. We proposed a new fixture design that we could guarantee to solve the problem and reduce scrap to at maximum of 0.3% but costing €40,000.

We demonstrated the business case and showed the client that a return on investment would be seen in less than 3 months by reducing scrap and speeding up the operation a little too.

Since submitting the proposals and quotation the client has asked if we would reduce the cost of the tool by simplifying the design. Knowing that the proposed design is one of only two pragmatic solutions and the one chosen would require less maintenance thus the total cost of ownership over the life of the tool is less, we declined the work because once again we believe that our reputation, our commercial partners and the client's reputation would be damaged as a result.

My thinking is, that such decisions whilst difficult to make are necessary for the long term good of all concerned, believing as I do that what goes around comes around. Sometimes it's hard to keep the faith, and the payback seems to elude you, but in the end it comes back to you as in the case with the tool design, the client has now decided to take our advice and go along with our proposals almost one year after first submitting them.

So as a reminder, listen to Kenny when he says "You got to know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em, know when to walk away, know when to run'

*Written by Don Schlitz