Tim and I attended the first session of the day. First up was a talk form Marie O’Mahony who co-authored Techno Textiles: Revolutionary Fabrics for Fashion and Design - books 1 and 2 plus many other textile based publications. Her talk was very interesting and walked us through some amazing concepts and case studies including some “living” fabric which had been grown from fungi and bacteria.

Then we moved on the the Pecha Kucha session and I was one of the presenters here. This fast paced presentation style gave a great overview of some current examples of sustainable/recycled/reused textile products and clothing lines. Of note was Orsola De Castro’s section about her label ‘From Somewhere’. Her business started around customising knitwear but has grown into a major label by utilising, as she puts it, virgin recycled material. This material is off-cuts and end-of-rolls from large textile mills. These materials are essentially new/virgin but would otherwise be scrap, so using them is a excellent diversion of waste and gives the clothes a great point of difference. The key points I found most useful were around the scalability issues of recycled material sourcing and ethical practices. Both these areas are crucial to Pli’s future growth.

The other sections were delivered by slightly smaller scale businesses around the textile industry. My presentation on the Reee chair was really the odd one out, being about product development, and I provided another view on recycled materials in consumer products. Pecha Kucha is a great format to speak to–and 20 seconds per slide really kept me on my toes. I started by outlining the history of the Reee chair project starting with the initial concept of the project between the recycled electronics source and Christopher. Then I moved through the development process including initial concepts from Sprout and various technical developments during the prototype process. Following that I talked about the final manufacturing development and marketing of the chair up until this point. The presentation seem to be well received and most importantly I enjoyed myself.

Our first textile symposium experience was short but sweet. Unfortunately we had to get to another meeting in the afternoon so we couldn’t stay for the rest of the day’s sessions — I am sure we would have got a lot from them.

Thanks to Chelsea for organising an interesting seminar!

Get yourself noticed
The first step in any successful marketing/sales plan is to define the key steps you need to reach a goal. Five seems to be the magic number, because as for the 5S system of Lean manufacture, Leigh had also settled on five keys ideas for success. They are as follows:

• Clarify outcomes
• Take action
• Be aware
• Be Flexible
• Rapport

The last idea of rapport instantly stood out as the most important part of sales success. Whether your communicating through marketing or directly with a potential customer it is the rapport you have with them that will ultimately determine the sale. Subsequently creating this rapport with the customer should be the main focus of any sales/marketing department. We also learned that when communicating it is important to step away from company-centric “we” language and start to use the more customer-centric “you”. This language shift engages the customer more lets you be more responsive to the their actual needs and wants, rather than just spouting on about the “features” of your business.

Using these 5 keys to success we went through how companies get attention in the market. Advertising, direct mail, telemarketing and PR were amongst the topics discussed. It was especially helpful being from a small company with a limited marketing budget to get some hints and tips about what routes to market are more effective than others. There was also an opportunity to share some of our (Pli’s) experiences of marketing furniture products for a small company’s perspective.

Communicating and Influencing
In the afternoon session Leigh focused on the sales pitch and how we communicate with a customer. Firstly we dissected the different aspects of communicating;

• Words
• Tonality
• Physiology

Having dealt moe or less with ‘Words’ in the morning session through marketing, we now looked at how Tonality and Physiology could effect the rapport with the customer. Understanding these two areas of communication can help a sales teams discover clues and strategies in dealing with different types of customers. For instance knowing whether a customer is a visual communicator or a auditory (hearing) based communicator lets you adapt your style of language to engage them more effectively. Another interesting, if not kind spooky, part of the session was her ability to use the tonality of her voice and philological signals like mimicry to influence a room of people.

The last section of the day looked directly at the ‘Pitch’. Obviously knowing what to say and when is the difference between a good sale and looking like a complete novice, so it was interesting to see where things were going well and places where we have been dropping the ball. We first looked at the power of the ‘open question’ to find out key information about the customer and keep them talking. This again helps with the rapport and lets you form a stronger relationship with the customer. Again the stronger relationship the more likely the sale but also this relationship also may go further and lead to subsequent business thorough customer referrals.

The next variation in the ‘pitch’ looked at the pain vs gain motivations of a customer. Why people want your product can be broken down into two categories, what a ‘gain’ do they get from it or does it ‘pain’ alleviate. Understanding these motivations can let you tailor your pitch accordingly. People who by for ‘gain’ want to hear what the product will give them, for example take a product thats point of difference is speed, you would sell this product using the pitch “you can be faster if you buy my product”. On the flip side, people who buy to get rid of ‘pain’ don’t care about what they get, they just want to hear about the problems that will disappear. Here you have to sell the concept of speed differently, the pain you have where speed is the solution is that you are slow, so the pitch would now be “are you tired of being slow, then buy my product”. Knowing this can set you down the right path and save you a poorly directed pitch.

Lastly we summed up with by going through two checklists one for preparing and the other for reviewing a pitch, both useful tools in formalising each process for better results. She did give also reveal her secret to closing deal ,but that i will keep close to my chest.

All and all a really worthwhile day. I learned an awful lot of hints, tips and strategies that will make a big difference here at Pli. So if you get a chance to attend a Sales Consultancy seminar or need some advice on sales I highly recommend getting in touch with them.

Here’s how Architonic describes itself…

About

Even for large firms of architects it is difficult to keep track of the current wealth of materials, furnishings and fittings on the market, not to mention the constant flow of new designs. For private property owners and design enthusiasts it is all the more difficult.
Architonic provides the solution to this problem by constantly monitoring the worldwide market with its team of architects and designers, making it quick and easy for you to find the products selected by the team.

Our aim: the best products, materials, designs and concepts for the best in architecture - always up to date, impartial, selective.
The result: more than 45,000 products from 4,500 designers and 1,400 manufacturers. Every single month more than 230,000 people visit the Architonic site, of whom 68% are architects, interior architects, and planners. About 60% of the visitors come from Europe, 20% from the USA and 20% from Asia and the Middle East.

Architonic AG, which has its head office in Zurich is an internationally-based network consisting of architects, designers, IT experts and marketing professionals. With its contents and concepts Architonic focuses on the generation and distribution of knowledge and information among architects, designers, research and industry.

We chose Tim for this project due to his experience in sustainable packaging. He developed a strong concept for a sustainable Heinz Ketchup bottle. Have a look at that and some more of his work on his Coroflot portfolio page

Push

The group was set up into stations that performed various stages of manufacture, with a forklift driver to deliver the parts (Lego blocks) around the factory. We initially calculated how long each part would take to manufacture then factored in various other industry standard costs, then added transport time and came up with total build time for a batch of ten. This time of around 2 minutess would be used to send new orders into the “factory”. The first order hit the factory, brimming with confidence the group started the first batch. Quickly the wheels began to fall of the production process. Stations were quickly running out of stock, only 1 out of 5 workers were busy at any time, and the poor forklift driver was going non-stop around the factory. Six minutes into production we had got our first batch through to the customer, that made us three minutes late on our first order. Quickly production was stopped due to the customer pulling orders for lateness. From there we had to count up the cost of this production failure. After the first production run we had around £150 of product left on the floor.

For round two we were able to change two things. As a group we decide to rearrange the production line so the was shorter distance to travel. We also changed the stocking system so the forklift driver was working more effectively. The calculations were run again on the new setup and with the reduction in transport time we had a new lead time of 90 seconds, easy. The first order was in and instantly we knew the changes hadn’t made as much difference as we had first hoped and to make it worse the first batch was scraped due to a defect. After 6 minutes and two delivered batches the production was canned again. Despite getting one more batch out, albeit late, the resulting stock and defects left in the factory added up to around £600, whoops.

These two production run-throughs clearly outlined the they problems of the “push” system, too much stock on the line and inefficient production processes.

Pull

This new system saw complete change in thinking when it came to manufacturing our Lego blocks. We went from producing batches of 10 to producing 1 part at a time on a line that could be stopped and started with little delay. The stock ordering had also been outsourced and was now delivered directly onto the line. Lastly the forklift had gone because single parts could be moved manually between stations — because the batch size had been reduced. We ran the calculations again and a new time of 55 seconds was set as the lead time for a batch of ten.

After our last attempts we didn’t hold high hopes of getting close to this time. The first order was in and the rhythmic sound of effective production took over the room. Our first batch took 50 seconds and subsequent batches weren’t far behind. Once the line was stopped there was minimal stock left on the line, most still being held at the third party suppliers: success!

Analysing the old method and reducing the 8 waste streams had paid off. Transferring these methods into real life results would mean a huge price saving for all parties concerned. It also managed the risk of defects well with only single parts being scrapped rather than whole batches.

Seeing the principles displayed so effectively with Lego you would be foolish not to take a second look at your current processes. Even if you are not in manufacture there is still a lot to learn for this clear strategy for organising a business. For me it was a really interesting couple of days that I got a great deal from.

Day 7 and 8 of the NPD course were delivered by Colin Allaway from London Manufacturing Advisory Service. He has worked in manufacturing for the past 37 years, for a wide range of companies from plastic caps to aerospace, so he soon had us up to speed on the KISS (keep it simple stupid) principles that lean manufacture is based around.

Day 7

How do we compete on price with China? Beat ‘em or Join ‘em?
The ‘China’ subject came up early on in the discussion - with China being able to get such a low unit price why not just go there and reap the profits? That maybe an option for established brands in China, but it is a different story for a small manufacturer when you look at the total cost rather than just unit cost. Things like lead-time, shipping costs, batch sizes, exchange rates, and even payment of goods can cripple a small company if not drive them out of business. Colin added that most companies working with Chinese manufacturers fold due to their cash-flow being tied up in stock before their goods have even arrived on UK soil. This doesn’t mean to say “stay away from China”, more advising you to do your sums first and don’t leave anything out of the equation or you might be unpleasantly surprised. On the other hand, UK based manufacturing maybe more cost effective than you may have first thought. Short lead times, easier communication, less transport cost, and smaller batch sizes all reduce costs in the overall picture.

How efficiently are you working? 80% 70%…… try 5%?
When producing a product only about 5% of the time is spent adding value - value being defined as things that the customer expects and pays for e.g. cutting, packaging, material, etc. — the rest is non-value added time. Non valued added time is necessary to the development of a product but often is full of wasteful processes. The object of lean manufacture is not to try eke the last little percent out of the 5% of the processes where you are adding value, it focuses on the 95% where you are not. It is basic maths a 10% gain in productivity is either worth 9.5% or 0.5% to the overall process.

The waste streams can be broken down into 8 categories, these included transport, overstocking, and defects. Reducing any of these waste streams can give you some quite hefty gains from some simple thinking. For example reorganising your manufacturing line so you cut down the distance products travel between stations could save you kilometers and hours a year. It sounds simple because the basics of Lean manufacture is plain common sense with a bit of ‘thinking outside the square’.

Colin then took us through “5S” which is the philosophy behind Lean thinking. These five steps don’t only have to apply to manufacture but can optimise every part of development and production. Translated from Japanese into sort, set, shine, standardise, and stick. Using these five steps you can organise and reshape any process or environment into effective solution.

• Sort - eliminates distractions that don’t need to be there
• Set - organises elements to become more focused to puprose
• Shine - creates a environment to be proud of and encourages productivity
• Standardise - develop processes into standard and repeatable solutions
• Stick - allows you to continue to use the previous steps productively

Traditionally UK manufacturing gets the first three sort, set, and shine right. European manufacturers get standardise as well as the first three and the Japanese get all five. This allows the some companies like Toyota to run at around 100 defects per million parts, where as traditional UK manufacturing generally runs at about a 15% defect rate, that is around 100,000 ppm. Those defects hit a businesses profit directly even if they are caught early in the supply chain and those costs keeping increasing ten-fold for every process step they slip through.

That was day one, pretty eventfully and interesting. The next day we got to play with Lego — stay tuned.

Liability is a two edge sword when designing a product. One side means you have to be thorough when designing/manufacturing to make sure your products are all that you claim they are. On the other hand you have deal with the foreseeable miss-use of your product. This means, the idiot who is using the chainsaw you designed, up a ladder with one hand in the rain, has to be catered for. Unfortunately you obviously can’t design the incompetent user out of a product, hence the myriad of seemingly obvious warning labels on most products. The above chainsaw case was just settled in an American court and the man walked away with a big settlement, along with another a case where a lady sued McDonald’s because she slipped on the wet floor and broke her tail-bone. Not that bad? Yes it is when you take into account she had just thrown the offending cup of coke on her boyfriend.

All this ‘liable’ madness came about because a snail found its way into a ginger beer bottle. If you have done any sort of law training I am sure you have heard of the Donohuge vs Stevenson case. Basically the story goes; One lady buys another lady a ginger beer, the second lady drinks the ginger beer and finds a dead snail in the bottle. The second lady gets a bit angry and decides to take the ginger beer bottler to court. This sounds pretty standard but before this case you could only take action if you were the actual purchaser of the product and since her friend had brought her the drink she had no case. However, it got all the way to the House of Lords where they opened Pandora’s box and set a new precedent for the modern tort of negligence, hence our current system of law.

All and all an interesting day but I am glad to see the back of the legal matters for now. I do see the need for lawyers and “rules”, but I prefer the fun stuff.

The first speaker was David Morgan from the UKIPO. He gave an overview of how IP works and some case-studies showing the value of IP to a company. I had seen him speak before at a previous London Remade seminar and it was a good refresher on the basics of IP.

The second speaker was Luke Pearson from PearsonLloyd Design. It was great to hear first hand experience of the ups and downs of licensing a product. His experience of licensing is, it takes away from the hassle of manufacturing and you get a nice cheque each year. Saying that: on the downside it isn’t as lucrative as you would imagine and you have to be prolific with your designing to keep the checks rolling in.

Following on From Luke Pearson was Margret Briffa for BRIFFA. She led us through the legal side of the licensing process. Margret gave us the key points to watch for when setting up a contract. It was all very interesting but quite fast paced. To make matters worse we had another fire alarm during her presentation. Thankfully it was only a test and no more damage had been done to the building. Margret did supply us with a hand out defining the different areas of IP each with their pros and cons which I’m sure will be very handy in future.

The last speaker was Philip Johnson from 7 New Square Barristers, he took us through the 5 types of design registrations. An interesting but somewhat deceptive area of IP, mainly due to the very similar names for each variation of registration. For me to explain what I learned would be complex indeed, but I do now know a lot more about the design registration than i used to.

In summary of my latest experience of IP; It is a very valuable area of the product design process for designers to get their head around. Finding out early-on in the design process that someone else has the rights to what you thought was your great idea will save you a lot of time and money. It may even lead to you coming up with something better, as is often the way with design.

It was first delivered on 18 June 2008, in Rich Mix venue London, during the ‘Green and Thrifty’ event hosted by London Remade as part of the ‘Love London’ festival. Now this lecture is here for everyone to enjoy. Any thoughts and comments are welcome.

Jodie Eastwood of Metropolitan Works spoke about how furniture developers and manufacturers can work more productively with designers by breaking down the different issues and expectations into manageable ideas.

We started by differentiating between conceptual design, commercial design and technical design (e.g. conceptual like the Campana Brothers, commercial like Simon Pengelly and technical like the anonymous designer who makes injection-moulded dustbins). What kind of product are you planning — therefore who do you want to brief for the design?

Then we moved on to the design project structure. This was very useful advice — the sort of training you think you already know, but it underlines how easy it is to stray from these intelligent project structures and allow things to get ad-hoc. The whole course group spent a while discussing the balance between creative freedom and hitting the brief on target. How much leeway should a designer get, and how much restraint should the client require? It’s a fuzzy issue and it’s great to discuss it with people who really understand both sides of the dilemna. We also discussed what motivates designers and how to bring out the best in them by learning how to be a ‘good’ client.

Finally, before the morning session finished, we focused on brief writing and we looked at the specific pieces of information a designer should need, in order to fulfil it and come back with usable concept drawings on schedule. We talked about production costs and margins and went down an interesting sidetrack to debate the merits of loss-leaders in the product range.

We broke for lunch. Then this happened…

The building caught fire, started in the new Metropolitan Works digital manufacturing centre next door. Click the image for Design Week’s coverage. It’s dreadful news for the very hard-working staff at Metropolitan Works. They have been working on this project for many months and they are already making a noticeable impact on the London product design community.

It’s the first time I have ever left a building for a fire alarm that was no drill: smoke and ash rising from the roof. It’s a testament to Jodie Eastwood and all the other staff that they first made sure the NPD course members were all safe and sound and then sent us to a local café with money for lunch! These guys are the real thing.