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We’ll be having a launch party for the Reee Chair on September 10, from 6.30 until 9.00 pm in central London. This is our chance to thank the many organisations that have helped us to bring this new product to the market, since we started planning it in 2006, and show the finished product to our customers, press and partners.
Reee Chair
In the last two weeks Pli’s latest product the Reee chair has gone into full scale production. It has taken two years product development to get to this point with the help of many, many people and organisations, from the designers Sprout to the subcontracted parts manufacturers and London Remade who supported the injection mould tooling.
Reee frame welding jig
Reee injection mould tool
Scotland’s Innovative Craft group have organised an exhibition of sustainable products with One Eco Home for the duration of the Edinburgh Festival. They are showing the Grass cabinet as an example of sustainable furniture design.
Bamboo and straw domestic cabinet
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:
You can now view Pli’s current range on the Architonic website: this is one of the best international resources for architects and designers to search and specify products for your projects.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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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On Wednesday this week, our colleague Eray Cayli presented his research into Utility Furniture at the Green and Trifty seminar organised by London Remade. If you’re a product designer, a design student or simply somebody with an interest in sustainable design, you’re sure to find his insights persuasive and inspiring.
Eray’s central point — as I understand it — is that the Utility Furniture scheme applied austerity measures not only to material supply and manufacturing processes, but also to the creative freedom and experimental curiosity of designers in that period (1942 - 1952). Imagine being constrained for 10 years of your working life by design committees staffed by bureauctratic appointees.
Are we risking our liberty to explore and develop new designs, materials and processes as British designers of the 1930s had done, unwittingly? If design professionals won’t moderate their own environmental impact, who will do it for them? Would it be possible for restraints to be applied centrally by governments or trade authorities to limit our work for the benefit of a low-carbon economy in the future?
Importantly, Eray has also spotted opportunities that arose from the Utility scheme, particularly for small local manufacturers who benefitted from a shortened supply and distribution network. They picked up the business that was previously aggregated by the big producers in High Wycombe and London’s East End. Will we increasingly make a virtue of local supply and short journeys?
You can download Eray’s presentation directly here. We’ll be podcasting the audio and slides in the next few days, once Eray has settled back in Istanbul.
If you want to follow up on the research into Utility Furniture and its application to new resource-efficient manufacturing business models, contact Pli or comment here and we’ll pick up the conversation with you.
Pli is offering a 20% discount on our Grass media tables through selected online retailers, including Nigel’s Eco Store. To take advantage of this offer–while stocks last–click on the logo.
The Grass media table is designed for modern home interiors. It combines sleek good looks with simply sustainable materials and an affordable price. Grab a bargain.
Pli’s latest products are now available through the UK’s leading online sustainable furniture retailers. A group of new and established retailers are offering eco-friendly furniture and homeware for competitive prices and we are really pleased to have been chosen as a supplier to so many already this year.
You can find selected designs from our Grass, Reee, Hoop and Twist ranges at Nigel’s Eco Store, One Eco Home, The Greenhaus and Hidden Art. More retailers will be stocking our products soon and we will be announcing them over the next few weeks.
The rise of green awareness puts designers and manufacturers in a position where they have to back up what they say. A helping hand comes from FIRA (furniture industry research association), who launched an online software tool named Furniture FootPrinter, with an RSA event on April 17th. Pli was there to get a grasp of this brand new green tool for the industry.
The ease of business travel and internet communications can give product developers a false sense of security when it comes to selecting parts suppliers and development partners around the world. The thrill is immediate: a bright future beckons, made of cheaper parts and magical supply-chain savings. The disappointments are slower to arrive but months or years down the line, plenty of designers and specifiers will end up questioning the decision to go ‘offshore’.
The Jean Prouvé exhibition ends on April 13. There’s just one week left to go and see this excellent collection of the French designer and manufacturer’s work at the Design Museum, by Tower Bridge in London. The Brit Insurance Designs of the Year exhibition is also running, upstairs, and you can catch it until 27 April.
The Prouvé exhibition is laid out as a sequence of explorations into different aspects of his work. From the first exhibit, Prouvé is depicted here as a mature designer with a ready-established aesthetic and expertise.
Prouvé’s work is significant for succeeding generations of furniture designers and architects. Like Alvar Aalto (well presented by Shigeru Ban in last year’s Barbican exhibition) he offered his clients a combination of true craftsmanship, innovation and a vision that went beyond the bounds of the briefs he was set.
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In case you missed the Mayor of London’s Green Procurement Code event, called ‘Fixtures and fittings for a greener office’ then you can download the presentations from the London Remade website now. The seminar was held on 31 March 2008 at The Wellcome Collection. London Remade is a valued supporter of Pli and many other businesses, and well worth a look if you are not familiar with their work.
Click on the logo to visit the London Remade site and download the ‘greener office’ slides.
While Londoners were fleeing the city during the long Easter weekend, this was actually a good time for a foreigner like me to check out what’s hot in the capital’s museums. Victoria and Albert was, of course, in the top of my list. This was where I happened to see two pieces of furniture that belonged to a period which I think is very much worth looking furhter into—a period that witnessed a movement called the Utility Furniture Scheme.
Starting in the UK, during the harsh conditions of mid-WWII and lasting for a decade, this scheme was basically a reaction to the material shortages (specifically timber) experienced in furniture production. The main objective was to bring about a more responsible approach to furniture design, so that scarce available resources were used in a sensible way. The reach of its precautions went as far as restricting furniture purchase only to newly-weds and people who had been bombed out.
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