On Friday last week Pli was invited to deliver a 10 minute presentation at the Upcycling Textiles Symposium held Chelsea College of Art & Design. The day was run by TED (Textile Environment Design) and it aimed to encourage the London textile and fashion community to embrace sustainable thinking.

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.

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The ninth and final day (well maybe…there is a rescheduled day due to the fire on day 3) was delivered by Leigh Ashton, Managing director of The Sales Consultancy. Straight away she set the tone of the day with her positive and direct sales attitude which became slightly infectious after a while, even to a slightly cynical designer like myself. However we quickly realised her presentation style wasn’t by chance, it was a honed and highly developed sales tool.

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

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After learning the theory of Lean manufacture on day 7 it was time to put it into practice, this meant playing with Lego. The reason for the Lego was to demonstrate the difference between a ‘push’ style of manufacture, a traditional style of manufacture, and ‘pull’ style developed through Lean manufacture. A simple metaphor to explain what was to come is try and pulling a piece of string versus pushing it.

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If you want results in manufacturing the current English trend is to go ‘Lean’. However this concept of ‘Lean’ manufacturing has been around since the 1960’s if not earlier. During this time post-WW2 Japan was rebuilding its manufacturing infrastructure and trying get rid of its reputation for low-quality products. American experts were sent to Japan to help the automotive manufacturers improve quality. Companies like Toyota and Yamaha embraced this quality driven Lean manufacturing style. From there, the Japanese made Lean manufacturing their own with unsurpassed levels of quality and manufacturing efficiency. Soon Europe began to implement its own style of lean manufacture. Nissan, Toyota, and Honda brought Lean manufacturing principles to the UK during the 90’s. Now these UK plants are leading the way in manufacturing innovation and efficiency.

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.
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Day 6 of the NPD course was delivered by Michael Gutierrez PERA/Supply London. He was focusing on the legislation and liability that comes with being a manufacturer/designer/distributor. I am beginning to realise from this and the previous intellectual property modules, that design is as much about having a good lawyer as it is about innovation. Saying that, the key to getting the best bang-for-your-buck from your legal assets seems to be using them early in your development process. If you can afford legal cover/advice at the front-end it can save you a lot of money if things turn to custard. This is what lawyers like to call “risk-management”, because legalities are going to get your money at some point. It is best to give the beast a sacrifice rather than taking a chance with it eating you alive.

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After the dramatic events of day 3 which I fortunately missed out on, Furniture Works had managed to regroup and relocate for day 4 which was on intellectual property. This module was headed by Marice Cumber from the intellectual property advice company Own-it. She had scheduled a range of speakers from various sectors of the IP industry.

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.
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This lecture was only one of the many fruitful outcomes of the invaluable time I spent with Pli earlier this year. It is about the ‘Utility Scheme‘ — legislation that put design, manufacturing and trade of certain products under the strict control of the British government during and just after World War II. (You may click here to read Christopher’s review of this lecture).

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On Wednesday 25 June I followed my colleague Alex onto the New Product Development course organized by Furniture Works at London Metropolitan University. Alex had already briefed me on the format and content of the course so far - I’m the one who spends most time working with design consultants and we agreed I can use the training on that topic most.

NPD Day 3

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…

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It was exactly a week ago today that I was trying to make a point at London Remade’s Green and Thrifty seminar, about a political-economic pendulum swinging back and forth between two polar opposites: “A no-holds-barred free market; and total state intervention”.

Trying to derive a lesson from the Utility Scheme, one of my main arguements was that no matter how benign the intentions of an authoritarian action are, history shows us that the public never fully abides by what has been put forward as mandatory. It is very interesting to see that this argument can in fact strike a chord in today’s current affairs.

A recent piece of news talks about a decision by the German civic authorities to make solar panels mandatory in the town of Marburg. This legislation sets a rule for “every new house or those whose roofs or heating systems are being renovated to install solar panels”.

Looks like killing two birds with one stone: Battling climate change and surviving at a time when energy prices are soaring. Nothing wrong up to this point? Don’t be so quick to judge.

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Over the last two days I attended the first two parts of a pilot programme on New Product Development at the London Metropolitan University. It is a module style course that helps start-ups, furniture designer/makers, and manufacturers pin points weaknesses and develop strengths in their product development. Pli being a company that focuses on effective product development both Christopher and I jumped at the chance to attend the free pilot of this programme.

Day One: Product strategy

We started with an introduction, then quickly moved on to the first module focusing on product strategy. Delivered by Matthew Lewis, from Furniture Works, we went through different elements of product strategy including, market placement and adding value to products. Some of these elements I knew well while others were gems of knowledge that cleared up various confusions I had been “living with” up until now.
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