At the Mercy of Design

How often do yo think about how linked your factory is to the products that you sell? Sometimes sales are simply due to the overall economy, as they are right now. However, your company is always fighting for market share from your competitors. the design of your product matters. Brandweek.com has an in-depth article about something called Design Thinking.

When Whirlpool launched its KitchenAid Series II line of appliances in 2007, the company was taking a bigger-than-usual gamble. Whirlpool's designers didn't just imbue the Series II—a refrigerator, microwave, range, oven and dishwasher—with the kind of sleek, industrial look popularized by TV foodie shows; the appliances shared distinctive design touches like responsive black touch display panels and bow-shaped chrome handles—clear indications that each appliance was meant to be part of a set.That may sound simple, but in fact it broke with industry orthodoxy. Conventional wisdom holds that consumers buy stuff like this piecemeal, most often as a "distress purchase" when the old one breaks down. So why did Whirlpool spend a lot of its own money to create a uniform look when most consumers wouldn't care?

The company's approach to advertising was similarly counter-intuitive: The brand advertised the whole line at once. Usually, ads for refrigerators come in March and campaigns for ovens hit in late summer.

Because the design is closely linked to life on the shop floor it is good to know some of the current thinking about best practices. Hopefully, the design activity has some linkage to the manufacturing environment.