A key question these days should not be "is design important for business?" but "Is strategic design thinking embedded in our business culture or at least growing in importance?". At least ten years ago I was learning how to improve the packaging design process, using real projects to demonstrate our improvements and how they enabled better pack designs from all four viewpoints: Design for Consumer, Manufacture, Competitiveness and business Sustainability. We did not have an explicit way of communicating these four excellences but we tried to influence their outcomes whenever possible. This meant taking a creative view of the new design technologies that were emerging into the marketplace.
When we looked at our supplier base we found that there were 23 different CAD systems, all based on different logic systems, all using different mathematical foundations and some were 2-dimensional, 21/2-d or 3-dimensional; some suppliers used 2-d descriptions in CAD to drive 3-dimensional CAM systems in order to create complex 3-d toolpaths required to machine the tools; others made 3-d solid models out of CIBATool, a sort of plastic wood substitute, to use on their copy millers. We had our own milling machine connected to the CADCAM system and we could machine pack models that became quality control models for some suppliers and the copy-model for others.
One bottle design was our first regional standardised shape.. but unfortunately bottles from the pilot mould made by the various suppliers varied considerably, enough to affect the packing line performance which was unacceptable.
It turned out that the conventional process for defining new packaging was breaking down. Consider the topline process
The basic process of designing that pack is very straightforward but when we consider the supplier base and the information flows between the parties involved we see a very different picture
These flows are not really observed by the players involved in the project as they are looking at their little piece; if we are using an innovation funnel process this interchange of information leads to an opaque view of the process
The real problem with this model of the process of creating packaging is that it does not give sufficient weight to the affective elements of the total package; the non-rational and emotional elements need to be made explicit (opportunities) and their interaction with the technologies and supply chains available or imagined (constraints). So maybe a cross-section through our funnel should be the Design Space and the funnel should become more like this
The start of the packaging project will now be an exploratory phase: "Exploring the What" which is a divergent activity, bringing any relevant useful information and knowledge into the Design Space. This is followed by a convergent "Deciding the What" phase where the team sifts through the "stuff", clustering and looking for emergent routes that might be fruitful in achieving the projects aims.
At this point some selections need to be made; the 8 Design Space factors can be used to create a filter that will quickly determine which routes are more promising and one or more can be selected for more detailed work
So the next exploratory phase on "How to deliver the What" will allow the team to widen their horizons; ignore constraints and discuss how they would tackle each What from the previous phase. Then comes the painful process of "Deciding the How", picking one or two routes to take forward into a detailed design phase. Painful? because this is the time that organisational culture can massively restrict the range of options the team is prepared to present for resource approval. It is here that more substantial, radical routes raise more questions than answers relative to the incremental ones, so may not seem as attractive. It is at this point that the gatekeeping meetings that look at all the projects seem threatening because the gatekeepers will ask their set of questions and hearing the answers, decide which ones to back. More substantial and radical ideas will get a rough ride, so why bother? In fact what is needed is a better way of feeding the funnnel so that more innovative projects can be protected longer and are resourced in a different way......? Maybe a different set of questions need to be asked.
Comments