Sean Carney: Moving the needle

It’s Grinyer vs Woudhuysen in manufacturing and design debate

16 May 2012 - If you were at our Product Design + Innovation conference last year, you will probably remember some friendly sparring between Clive Grinyer (pictured left), director of customer experience at Cisco IBSG, and James Woudhuysen (pictured far right), professor of forecasting and innovation at De Montfort University. Well, these two design provocateurs will be back doing battle at our conference on 29 May, taking opposite sides in a debate that promises to be very lively.

The motion of the debate is: “In both manufacturing and services, design is pivotal to economic growth”.

Clive Grinyer is for the motion. He will be supported by Andrea Siodmok, programme director at Dott Cornwall. James Woudhuysen will speak against the motion, along with Martyn Perks of Thinking Apart.

Be at the ringside. Book a place at Product Design + Innovation 2012 on our conference pages.

Key providers back conference

7 May 2012 - Our Product Design + Innovation Conference on 29-30 May has received sponsorship backing from four global companies providing key services to product designers: Autodesk, DuPont, Materialise and MacDermid Autotype.

Platinum Sponsor Autodesk will be demonstrating its Product Design Suite and PLM360 systems. Carl Faux at Autodesk customer Triple 8 Racing will make a presentation on “Cars designed and produced in three months thanks to streamlined workflows”.

DuPont Performance Polymers returns as a Platinum Sponsor for the second year. Mark Young from DuPont will present on “Sustainability without compromise”.

The move from Now to Now What

4 May 2012 - Corporations may be good but they are rarely great. In a BDI opinion piece, Steve May-Russell, founder director of Smallfry, writes that companies are so focused on making an immediate profit that they cannot truly innovate.

He says: “The truth is there are two dimensions to what is required to succeed. Put simply, it is split into the “Now!” and “Now what?” camps, where the day job is all about what you need to do short term, right here and right now, and the visionary work needs to address the more strategic issues – the Now What?”

In the article, May-Russell describes Smallfry’s strategic product development methodology, which was also highlighted in a presentation he made at our Product Design + Innovation conference last year.
 

Live and online: Join the dialogue at Product Design + Innovation

30 April 2012 - The Product Design + Innovation 2012 conference is fast approaching, promising dialogue between speakers and delegates that will be every bit as lively as at the 2011 event. The discussion has already started on Twitter and LinkedIn and will ramp up in the next few weeks and live during the conference on 29-30 May.

Our Twitter stream @pdesigni now has close to 1,000 followers and we are using the hashtag #pdesigni before and during the conference. Our LinkedIn group has more than 2,000 members, offering and seeking advice on industrial design issues.

Look out for tweets from conference chairman Kevin McCullagh @kevinmccull and his company Plan @planstrategic as he talks to speakers before the conference. Take part in the online discussion and network at the live event.

Find out more and register at Product Design + Innovation 2012.
 

Dekode and Revo present their award winning partnership

26 April 2012 - Jeremy Offer, managing director of Dekode, and David Baxter, CEO of Revo Technologies, will present a case study at our conference next month that shows how its designer-client partnership produced Revo’s Heritage internet radio. Heritage won a Red Dot award in 2010 and the partners have repeated their success with the K2 radio (pictured), a Red Dot winner this year.

Jeremy Offer tells us Dekode has a very close working relationship with Revo, discussing a new product at the earliest stage. He describes the collaborative process as “a free exchange of information and a two-way conversation”. He says: “Revo totally understands the benefits design can bring.”

For information on speakers and how to register, visit the conference pages.

‘Dyson doesn’t really do green’ – Alex Knox

25 April 2012 -- It’s interesting to see Alex Knox (pictured), industrial design director at Dyson, expressing scepticism about the pursuit of “green” products in a Forbes article. The Dyson Recyclone developed in the early 1990s used recycled plastics and organic pigments, so would qualify as a “green” product. But it was marred by reliability issues and high reject rates.

“Dyson doesn’t really do green,” Knox is quoted as saying. “And I’m not really an environmentalist either.” Sustainability comes from innovation and better engineering, he says. These are the hallmarks of a Dyson product, such as the low-energy Air Blade hand dryer.

Other producers of vacuum cleaners have ventured more recently into “green” territory. In 2010, Electrolux launched cleaners with 55-70% recycled plastic content.
 

Design the New Business film presents new thinking

Design the New Business - English subtitles from dthenewb on Vimeo.

20 April 2012 - Design the New Business is a 39-minute documentary that explores the changing relationship between business and product/service design. Made by Erik Roscam Abbing and students from TU Delft, the film presents interviews with mainly European designers, asking them about differences in business thinking and design thinking.

Aldo de Jong and Rich Padka, founders of Claro Partners in Barcelona, discuss work they have done with Intel. Oliver King and Joe Heapy, founders of Engine in London, offer insights into their collaborative project with Camden Council relating to older people. Others in the film include Ton Borsboom, senior director at Philips Design Consulting, and Benjamin Schultz in Volswagen’s service innovation.
 

The world is becoming more complex, so call a designer

17 April 2012 - The biggest challenge for CEOs is increasing complexity of technologies, systems and services and there is a need to bring creativity to that challenge. That’s the starting point of a Wall Street Journal article written by former IBM CIO Irving Wladawsky-Berger (pictured), who sets out a case for industrial and service design teams to provide the much-needed creative approach.

Wladawsky-Berger writes: “Design principles are particularly applicable to problems that are socio-technical in nature, that is, they involve people and technology, having to deal both with complex technical, business and societal infrastructures and human behaviors. They are critical for dealing with the Grand Challenge problems we are facing in the 21st century, including health care, urbanization, education, energy, finance, and job creation.”

Finding plastics in unusual places

16 April 2012 - The 111 Navy Chair designed by Emeco has won “Best in Show” at the International Plastics Design Competition, sponsored by the Society of the Plastics Industry in the US. The design may be classic, but the material is not – recycled PET drinks bottles are used in its manufacture.

In an article by our sister publication Plastics News, other categories of the competition are covered. Winner of the medical and scientific category was the Mobilegs crutch, a plastic and aluminium crutch that replaces a typical padded foam shoulder cradle with a plastic web, similar to the design of an executive office chair. Mobilegs also won the competition’s IDSA/Plastics News Design Award, selected by members of the Industrial Designers Society of America and given to product designers.