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Final say

CREATING THE RIGHT IMAGE

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How important is design in thedevelopment of an industrial product?Is it an added expense that will make nodifference to sales, or can it be used tomake a product more appealing,efficient and save money on

manufacturing at the same time?Not long ago the former view would have prevailed,

but design is increasingly becoming a major part ofthe electrical engineering process. Take the humblelight switch. At one time the only choice was a whitebox. Now they come in a whole variety of shapes,materials and finishes.

Previously designers often felt they were dismissedas ‘felt tip fairies’ or in other derogatory terms byengineers who thought they were only there toproduce designs that would be far too complicated andcostly to manufacture. And from the designers’ pointof view they often saw engineers as being too stuck intheir ways and not open to new suggestions. But intoday’s design-led age nobody can avoid being seducedby the iPod or latest mobile phone design and this is

now spilling over into the industrial sector.Design isn’t just about how a product looks though.

Good design, say its supporters, can make productsmore effective, add value and even save money.Successful product designers have earned the trust ofengineers by showing that they understand thetechnical aspects and aren’t just there to draw prettypictures. Some now employ their own engineeringexpertise and work with the client from initialconcepts through to manufacture, offering technicalsupport, such as with choosing materials andsuppliers, right the way through to the finishedproduct. When electrical test equipment expertMegger was developing the MIP300 series of wiringtest meters, the company saw design as important forgiving customers what they required from a test meter.Not that its customers would have realised this. “Ifyou’d asked our customers about the design of theproduct they would have said they didn’t care,”Andrew Dodds, of Megger, said. “But moreinvestigation showed that what they did care aboutwas how comfortable it felt to use, how tough it was

If you’d asked our customers aboutthe design of the product they wouldhave said they didn’t care

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48 IEE Manufacturing Engineer | August/September 2005

and that it was reliable. Much of this is, of course isdown to the case design and we wanted to develop aninstrument that made electricians feel far lesssatisfied with their existing test instruments.”

How the electricians perceived the instrumentdetermined how they would use it. The previousMegger range was robust but users didn’t think itlooked like it was, so they treated it extremelycarefully. The new product therefore needed to looklike it could be ‘drop kicked into the back of a van’.

And the resulting design? “The design is so cleanand functional that it manages to make somethingvery complex look very simple,” Dodds said. “But ourusers probably won’t realise how much design hasbeen involved in developing the product.“

The benefits of design are now filtering through tomany companies who previously hadn’t thought thatdesign was necessary for their products. Often theyembrace design as part of giving their products acompetitive edge. If two products are equal in everyother aspect most people are likely to go for the onethey like the look of. Security products companyCodelocks outsourced design for the first time whendeveloping its latest Codelock 5000 coded accesscontrol lock. As managing director Grant MacDonaldexplains. “As a well-known brand in this area we haveto raise the game by continuing to increase the qualitywe offer customers. Good design can help here. If twoproducts do the same job but one looks like it has beencreated out of a block of granite and the other hasbeen designed by professionals it’s obvious which onecustomers are going to choose.”

For designers it’s good to have their contribution tothe manufacturing process finally recognised, asAlasdair Barnett of industrial designers DesignEdge,Cambridge, explains: “Until very recently the viewfrom engineering directors has often been ‘We don’tneed design, why can’t we just have a box?’ Yet thesesame people were driving stylish cars, using designergadgets and filling their home with well-designedproducts. This is definitely changing, particularlywhen designers are prepared to see the design rightthrough to manufacture, such as with finding ways toreduce manufacturing and parts costs, and engineersare open minded to what design can achieve.“

So a bit of compromise on each side can lead toproducts that don’t only look good, but are producedeconomically and do the job for which they areintended. And as one engineering client ofDesignEdge says: “It’s good to have a product to showthat’s a bit sexier than every other box on the factoryfloor”. �

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