Crossing the Chasm: Design Engineering

I still remember being presented with early design concepts for Nolii and being very excited about the possibilities. Even more excited when we presented them at London Design Festival in 2017 and the reaction from the press and the public around the potential. 

That excitement seemed a distant memory when sitting in Chinese factories for 8 weeks looking at pre-production samples that were nowhere near being ready to be put into the public’s hands. I wondered how such excitement had turned into despair?

Till that point, I had not been directly involved in the manufacturing side of things as we had handed it over to a manufacturing partner. This was the worst thing we could have done, but also one of the best things we have done. 

Determined not to let the delays sink the project, I visited China over 8 times over the next 12 months. I was determined to become an expert and not let this happen again. 

Critically, we had not spent enough time in the initial phase on design engineering & this is why I wanted to unpack the importance of it in this blog.

The role of the Design Engineer

The role of design in the initial design phase is to ignite a vision for a product - a reason for existence, an aesthetic & an understanding of how it could work / could be made. 

Design engineering I like to describe as the translation of the concept into mass manufacturing. This role requires a deep understanding of the area of concern - be it tooling, materials, or electricals. 

Design engineers enable constraint. Constraint is sometimes seen as a bad thing in design, but unless you have unlimited resources - it provides you a clear path to getting products launched or pitfalls you may encounter on the way. 

Involving a design engineer, from the early design stages through to manufacturing, is, in my humble opinion, best practice and will save you a lot of time and costs.

Leave no stone unturned with prototyping

The job to be done in the prototyping phase is to reduce any risk from the mass manufacturing phase. Once you have made 3,000 of your product if you find a fault, it’s a very expensive process to then go back! 

3D Printed prototypes are great for understanding form, but they do little to help you understand if the product can be made to your specification. The materials & processes used in 3D printing be it SLS or PLA are very different to anything used in mass manufacturing. 

You need to create a list of the prototypes you need and areas you need to test. Everything from the electrical circuit for the use case, to heat management, to durability of materials or bonding of materials. Leave nothing to chance & make it clear that you will need to do as many rounds as necessary to get it right. 

It’s important you start with the end in mind and understand the testing requirements for your products and the markets you wish to sell them in. if its CE, FCC - what are the tests you are going to need to run on the final product to enable you to sell it. In addition when choosing materials, what are the durability requirements of your products, how will they be used by your end user. 

You should work with your Design engineer to work through a list of these and engage the factory you are working with in creating these prototypes. Being clear to them from the beginning will also give them the confidence that you know what you are doing. Managing factories half the time is all about mindset and confidence. 

Listen

It’s important to listen actively and passively. Listen to what your engineers are telling you, what your manufacturers are telling you. There will be times when you need to push them of course, but as you do this more you will learn where your limits are with this. 

I also like to look closely at how others are doing it and get advice from others in the trade. Buy your competitor’s products, do teardowns. If you are doing electrical products, understand what PCBs are readily available that you can get off the shelf or modify.

There is a tendency to try and make everything better in your product. When you are starting off, you simply can’t. You need to decide on the primary features you want to own and then some of the others you will need to simply improve over time. 

If you have not read them yet, here are links to my earlier two blogs on bringing products to market and working with the design industry. This blog series aims to shine a spotlight into the process and my learnings over the last 3 years.

Choosing your design partner

How to create an effective project brief