Back in the day I’m told designers in the UK used to be able to visit the manufactures of their lovely designs by getting in a car and travelling a short distance to the local horse shoe basher.
They could talk to people working in the factory and gain a good understanding of the way products were made.
Things have changed and to gain such an understanding these days, in the majority of cases, going to a factory manufacturing large volumes means getting on a big plane in an easterly direction for a long time.
I undertook such and activity recently to meet Ray who heads up our FE office in Hong Kong. I had missed his prior visit to the uk so was glad to meet him despite his proclaimed love of Man Utd.
Our HK office was impressively efficient, quite a contrast to the flip flop culture of our creative uk office. A visit to China to factories making some of our designs proved an interesting experience. Having worked in a number of UK factories in my youth I can certainly say I have worked in worse environments than I saw in China. The effect design decisions have on assembly lines and costs became abundantly apparent upon seeing the process live.
Our R+D centre was coming along nicely, being situated within a factory enables us to try out new technologies and materials directly through the machines that will be making them from their conception.
After such a positive trip we plan to integrate our Hong Kong office firmly into our development process so from day one of a project we are liaising with our manufacturing partners and considering manufacturing lead times, materials, assembly, testing and communicating all of this back to our clients
