Here’s an announcement from our friends at Birmingham City University’s Institute of Art & Design…

Sustainability specialists will be converging at the ICC in Birmingham at 12 noon on Monday 15th September for an interactive debate. The focus of the debate will be looking at issues facing up and coming managers and future leaders in the development of green strategies in the work place. The event, organised by Birmingham City University, follows research into attitudes and influences in developing green policies, reviewing how individuals can pro actively apply green lifestyle choices in the workplace.

Grrreen Debate

The Big Debate chaired by the BBC’s special correspondent Richard Bilton, will feature Peter Ainsworth, Shadow Environment Secretary, leading blogger for treehugger.com, Leonora Oppenheim (expert in eco design) and Birmingham Post and Mail environmental correspondent Patrice John.
Read more »

“It takes around 13 trees, 2.5 barrels of oil, 4.1000 kwh of electricity, 31.780 litres of water and four cubic metres of landfill to make just one tonne of cardboard” 1

This growing concern for resource use has led to significant increases in the development of Reusable Transit Packaging (RTP).

My initial research into sustainable transit packaging led me to several trials WRAP have been carrying out in collaboration with leading furniture suppliers. In a trial carried out with B&Q they used a returnable two-part soft polypropylene ‘carrierpac’ to protect kitchen worktops. The bespoke carrierpac is made of 40% recycled material and is fully recyclable. As well as greatly reducing the amount of packaging entering the waste stream it also significantly reduces damages and improves presentation. Several other furniture suppliers have been experiencing the benefits of similar RTP systems and with the continual improvement of RTP logistics this option promises to greatly reduce the environmental impact of transit packaging.

Reuseable transit packaging

Read more »

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.

Read more »

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

Read more »

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.

Read more »

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.
Read more »

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.

Read more »

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.
Read more »

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).

Read more »