Tag: Product Engineering

2020: Decade of the drones|

2020: Decade of the drones

November 22nd 2019

Adam Turner 

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones are increasingly part of our everyday lives. Here, Adam Turner, Consultant Mechanical Engineer and drone expert at Cambridge Design Partnership, considers the future potential of this remarkable technology.

Here at CDP, we love innovation and disruptive technologies. It’s what we do. So, needless to say, I find myself hugely intrigued by the uses offered by drone technology. Where will drones go from here?

The drive to design an unmanned aircraft initially came from the military, for airborne missions that were too risky for humans. In recent times, however, drones have found peaceful uses in everything from wedding photography to rounding up sheep. As designers, here at CDP we’re pretty sure this is just the beginning.

Automated so they are easy to control, powered by (potentially) clean electricity with battery and motor technology progressing quickly, and with the opportunity to include artificial intelligence to allow fully autonomous operation, the scope for drones is enormous. Here are some applications we are excited about.

Drone taxis. There are plenty of big names like Boeing, and start-ups like Volocopter, working in this sector. For example, global taxi firm Uber is also creating a small, vertically launched drone like aircraft to offer transport within and between cities. For how long will there be a pilot on board? With the benefit of an app, you could order a drone to take you to work or out for dinner. Drone taxis potentially avoid city congestion and the noise and disruption of conventional helicopters. It’s simply a case of up, up and away…

Drone agriculture. Already, farmers use drones to check crops and livestock. In the future, I’m sure crops spraying drones, such as John Deer’s recent development will enter use.  Food productivity will surely rise, drones programmed to take a series of photos using different light spectrums will enable a farmer to track crop growth and spot any issues, leading to better yields and less agri-chemical usage.

Drone environmentalism. Already, an initiative by British firm Biocarbon Engineering to fight deforestation in mangrove forests using drones is proving much more efficient than human labour. The drone surveys and tests the soil, then drops pods containing tree seeds and vital nutrients. Beyond this, the environmental potential of drone technology is enormous. From preventing poaching of rare animals, tracking populations to tracking glacial ice, a drone can play a crucial role.

Drone cranes. The construction industry has already trialled drones to lift bricks and roof tiles into place on a building site.  Going further, drones that can lift hundreds of kgs are in development. If drones become ever larger, which we at CDP anticipate, could they then one day replace cranes as the go-to method of lifting building materials?

Drone inspection. Inspecting high rise buildings, industrial plant and infrastructure like electricity pylons and bridges, is already a cost-effective drone application. Be it using cameras or more specialist sensors.  We expect this to develop further as drone automation, and AI to detect faults, makes this even more attractive.

Drone shipping. Containers revolutionised the shipping industry in the 1960’s. Will drones be the next big thing in the transportation world? While they will always be significantly less energy efficient compared to ships and trucks, giant drones could deliver high value imports quickly from ports to distribution hubs, especially in areas where other transport infrastructure does not exist. Then at a micro level, drones might bring our packages to the door and solve that tricky ‘last mile’ delivery conundrum for companies like Amazon and UPS, who are developing systems at present. As well as the multi-rotor quadcopter, we are already seeing hybrid fixed-wing drones with longer flight-times and higher energy efficiency. Some are solar-powered, to partially re-charge as they fly, or powered from renewable fuels like hydrogen.

Drone fireworks. Human beings love a light show in times of celebration, whether it’s Guy Fawkes night in the UK or an awe-inspiring Olympic opening ceremony. For an eco-friendly, reusable alternative to fireworks, hundreds (or even thousands) of light-emitting drones can perform truly astonishing displays. US tech firm Intel has already put on some truly stunning drone displays at the Superbowl and at the Winter Olympics.

Drone rescue. On a more serious note, drones can literally save lives. In search-and-rescue situations, we already see crews using drones to spot survivors. Taking this even further, a drone could drop life jackets and rafts to people at sea, or food and medicine to inaccessible disaster sites. Rescue crews in Alabama used heat-seeking drones to search for survivors after a tornado in March 2019. Ambulance drones could deliver, say, defibrillators or EpiPen’s in cases where every second counts towards a patient’s survival.  Researchers are also looking at creating swarms of micro, autonomous drones whose group behaviour is designed to automatically search inaccessible spaces like burning buildings.

Drone crime. Anyone who has seen footage of drones delivering drugs into prisons knows that this technology has its dark side. Already, there have been reports of drones surveying neighbourhoods before a burglary. In terms of terrorism, disruption and smuggling goods or even people, drone tech presents the justice system with a serious headache. Just consider the disruption to Gatwick Airport in the UK by drones in December 2018 – the runway was closed for 30 hours, 1,000 flights were cancelled and 140,000 passengers stranded.

More recently, environmental protest group Extinction Rebellion tried to use drones to close Heathrow Airport but were foiled by signal-jamming technology. Terrorist or rogue state attacks using drones as weapons is another threat. I foresee that anti-drone technology will be an important field in the coming years and that the regulation of drones will become ever more important. In the UK, the Civil Aviation Authority have brought in compulsory drone registration for drones over 250g in weight. Will drones, like cars today, have number plates, insurance and MOT tests in the future?

Drone police.  As an antidote to drone crime, law enforcement use drone surveillance in place of expensive helicopters, where their ability to search large areas quickly can be vital to ensure public safety and to catch criminals.

Drone shopping. Need a loaf of bread? New shoes? A Venti Double-Iced Toffee Almond Nut Latte with extra cream? We may one day soon team up our internet shopping habit with sending our own personal drone to fetch our purchases from the retailer. Your supermarket shopping could be dropped off on your doorstep or in a code-secured locker outside your house. Forget a drive-in Macdonald’s, could there be a drone-in Macdonald’s?

Drone communications. Bringing comms networks to regions which lack the infrastructure for internet and cellular services could well be a next step for drone technology. The Zephyr programme from Airbus is already exploring this possibility, with a solar-powered high-altitude pseudo satellite (HAPS). Zephyr, a fixed-wing drone, can stay in flight in the stratosphere without refuelling for months at a time. Among its many possible applications is the capacity to bring connectivity to the remote communities worldwide. Let’s not forget that 4 billion people on the planet are still without the internet.

Drone sports. Already drone-racing leagues are springing up. Competitors wear headsets, so they feel as though they are sitting on the nose of a drone. It’s exhilarating stuff when the drone is flying at 80mph through tight, LED lit, 3D courses. The footage can be streamed too, in HD, making this a spectator sport. In another development, drone fans have been meeting up for air battles, adding paintball guns, lasers and even a flame thrower to their drones. Even in the most traditional sports drones are proving to be disruptive. In fishing for example, a drone is used to position the bait in locations previously impossible to access from dry land. What’s next? The sky really is the limit.

Drone exploration. A popular activity is to use HD camera equipped drones to expand your experience when exploring the great outdoors.  They provide a new perspective on famous landmarks, some amazing selfies and allow the user to go to places and explore where it is otherwise impossible.

Drone photography. It has become difficult to find a TV program with an outdoor theme that does not include a drone shot to set the scene or provide fantastic images of landscapes or wildlife.  Fast paced action and sci-fi scenes are filmed by drones to allow the viewer to get close to the action.  Drone photography categories in photographic competitions are testament to the opportunities this technology provides for seeing the world in new and creative ways.

Conclusion. It’s easy to fear that drones could shape a dystopian future.  This blog has steered away from drone applications that include weapons. The shocking, dramatized viral video created in 2017 by the Future of Life Institute made this point strongly, and generated a debate about the risks of combining drone technology with AI.  But here at CDP, we are optimistic and see drones as a powerful potential force for good. It is up to humanity to ensure that this is used wisely, and that is a question we all need to consider in the coming years. How things will turn out, of course, only time will tell.

Lovelace Instrument

CDP engineer creates a remarkable musical instrument

October 24th 2019

Jonathan Morris 

Jonathan Morris, Mechanical engineer, explains how he came to design and build a most unusual musical instrument at CDP

Q. CDP doesn’t usually make musical instruments, does it?
Jonathan: No! This is definitely one of our more unexpected projects here at Cambridge Design Partnership. But when composer Robert Laidlow approached us with a project celebrating computing and Artificial Intelligence, it was clear that engineering and design could help him create an entirely new musical instrument.

Q. Sounds intriguing, tell us more…
Jonathan: We have built ‘The Lovelace Engine’, a mechanical musical instrument inspired by the work of Ada Lovelace, who studied the earliest computers back in the 1830s and 40s. Lovelace was a pioneering computer scientist, and one of the first to realise the potential of computing to perform ever more complex tasks.

Q. The machine looks stunning – how does it work?
Jonathan: Essentially it is a mechanical engine that can make a variety of percussion rhythms, controlled by a single shaft turned by a crank handle. It was constructed here at CDP using our rapid prototyping capabilities, with many parts being 3D printed.

Q. What sort of music will be played on The Lovelace Engine?
Jonathan: It’s a major new work and part of a concert that is a tribute to Ada Lovelace at the Barbican in London this autumn, led by Professor Emily Howard, director of PRiSM at the Royal Northern College of Music. The engine will be played during an exciting new piece commissioned for the performance called Alter. The music will performed by musicians from the Britten Sinfonia with text written entirely by Artificial Intelligence.

Q. So is this instrument a replica of the first computers that Lovelace worked on?
Jonathan: It’s very much inspired by them and draws inspiration from the mechanical technology available to Lovelace in the 1800s – there’s no electricity or circuit boards involved. But this is a musical instrument, not a computer, so it is a tribute to Lovelace rather than a copy of the computers she worked with.

Q. Was it difficult to make?
Jonathan:  It has been a unique challenge as we wanted the engine to be configurable, as Lovelace envisaged, so that it can change rhythm mid-performance. It’s been really interesting as a mechanical engineer to work on such an artistic, creative project.

Q. Not your everyday work at CDP then?
Jonathan: I’m in my first graduate job here at CDP and the variety of what we get up to here is fantastic. I am mostly working on medical devices and consumer products as well as designing experiments and test rigs. No two days are the same but, yes, a musical instrument is probably a one-off for us right now! I can’t wait to see it being played on stage.

The Lovelace Engine will be played at the Barbican on November 2 as part of “Ada Lovelace: Imagining the Analytical Engine”.

For more details, visit the site

Sustainable music festivals

Why are music festivals leading the sustainability agenda?

September 24th 2019

Matt Morris 

In 2019 the music festival industry experienced a sea change in their attitude to single-use plastic, with many large live events making the decision to ban it altogether. As the festival season draws to a close, CDP’s Matt Morris, mechanical engineer, sustainability expert and live music fan, looks at what product designers can learn from festival greening in 2019.

Matt says: The big change in the world of festivals this year was the move away from single-use plastics, all part of a general shift towards sustainability and better environmental practices at live music events.

In February 2019 the UK’s biggest festival, Glastonbury, announced it was banning single-use plastic bottles – saving the production of a million plastic bottles. Then many others followed, pledging to stop single use plastics by 2021.

Here at Cambridge Design Partnership, our aim is always to design out unnecessary waste so our clients are as sustainable as possible. So having attended several festivals myself this summer, and having seen the changes taking place first-hand, I am struck by what we can learn from these temporary communities as they strive to go plastic-free.

Join us to address some of the greatest environmental challenges of our era

We’re currently recruiting for a Sustainable Design Consultant, Life Cycle Assessment Engineer and a Head of Sustainability.

View vacancies

Starting with a closed system

Cutting out single-use plastic and greening your market is easier in a small enclosed community where the same organisation controls both the input of products and output of waste. This is, of course, the case at a music festival, where the sale, distribution and disposal of plastic is all within the remit of the same festival organisers.

It is far more straightforward, for example, for Emily Eavis to announce that Glastonbury is banning plastic bottles given that all the drink sales points and backstage hospitality facilities are licensed by Glastonbury Festival itself. The festival also organises the collection and recycling of waste after use, which means they are heavily invested in getting the recycling and disposal right.

However, in the wider world, communities and nations are faced with a far more challenging and fragmented proposition. Traditionally supply chains are one way, from manufacturers to consumers, and are motivated by maximising sales and minimising costs. Consumers are not encouraged by manufacturers to see any value in packaging, they often believe it is somehow free so don’t value the materials and energy encapsulated within it. In addition, waste systems are there to collect and dispose of packaging in isolation of its use and production. This means there is little incentive to coordinate the cycle of production, use and recycling. Although some forward thinking communities are now aiming to change this, for example via the plastic-free towns movement.

Here at CDP, we have been working with food service providers to create plastic-free packaging for closed environments such as transport systems, schools and hospitals. This allows those in charge of these institutions the choice to remove single-use plastic, and can act as a test bed for new solutions prior to more widespread adoption.

Considering the alternatives

Many festivals in 2019 chose to replace disposable plastic cups with sturdier ones that could be reused at any bar within the grounds. However, I was intrigued to see that plastic pint glasses were replaced at Glastonbury this year by stainless steel tumblers. These cost £5 each to buy and festivalgoers could either keep them or return them for a full refund on departure. It seems that the backlash against plastic has extended beyond just single-use plastics, prompting designers to consider materials that would not have been on the table just a few years ago.

However, material selection needs careful consideration. In terms of its impact on the planet, a steel cup may need to be reused many more times than a re-useable plastic one to offer a net benefit. Good design can help with this conundrum, by creating things that are a joy to use again and again. Judging by the fact that the Glastonbury 2019 stainless steel cups are now selling for £12 on eBay, leveraging the Glasto brand seems to have worked in this case!

It helps to engage with cultural influencers

Changing consumer habits takes significant effort. But at Glastonbury this year, I lost count of the performers who lent their approval to the plastic-free initiative. From rappers to rockers, many of the artists (who could only drink canned water on stage) spoke out during their sets in favour of the plastics ban, helping it to gain traction with a captive and approving audience.

What’s more, within the festival setting, there are dozens of ways to keep the initiative in the crucial ‘top of mind’ spot for peak consumer awareness. With kiosks everywhere offering free water and selling reusable cups, a festival is a great place to pioneer sustainable practices and encourage early adopters.

To replicate this in the wider economy is less immediate but not impossible. Frequent positive reinforcement through influencers, marketing and advertising does eventually have an impact.

Taking a holistic view

One of the ways in which CDP designs genuinely more sustainable products is by analysing the impact of the product through its entire life cycle. At festivals, it can be all too easy to take the feelgood option while the real environmental implications are more complex.

For example, the widespread switch at festivals this year to disposable cardboard or wood food packaging instead of plastic may create that positive vibe – but does it have less conspicuous drawbacks? It certainly reduces plastic waste, which is a very visible problem, but equally crushing a tree down into small fibres, mixing the wood pulp into a slurry and then passing it through huge rollers takes lots of energy and water. By contrast, plastic is light, durable and its manufacture is generally not particularly energy intensive. So we may be trading a plastic waste problem for an energy and water problem.

And if we rolled out this transition globally, could our forests (which, frankly, are in need of some TLC right now) support the demand for wood and pulp? It’s important to factor this into your environmental calculations before making a knee-jerk decision to switch materials or abandon plastic packaging. As designers, we have an obligation to weigh up these impacts, because it’s not fair to expect every consumer to have the necessary expertise.

At CDP we work with major beauty product manufacturers to develop packaging and products. Often, it’s important to look at the way the product is used, as well as its constituent parts, before making changes. For example, there can be as much benefit to the planet from encouraging consumers to switch off a running tap when brushing their teeth (wasting potable water and its processing and distribution energy) as there would be from asking them to switch to a bamboo toothbrush. At CDP we look at the entire lifecycle of a product, and the context in which it is used, to get a clear view of all the impacts on the planet.

This holistic view is also the key to creating genuinely innovative sustainable products and services. As consumers grow ever more discerning and the environmental movement becomes the mainstream, this approach will be critical to successful and sustainable product innovation.

In packaged products

In packaged products, context is king

September 12th 2019

Chris Houghton 

Chris Houghton leads Brand Innovation & Packaging at Cambridge Design Partnership, he has worked on an array of successful insight, design and strategic innovation projects with top consumer goods names including Arla, Carlsberg, Coca-Cola, Diageo, Nestle, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble and Unilever.

Following his ‘Context is King’ keynote speeches at PACE in Amsterdam and AIPIA in New Jersey, he summarises five key questions brands need to answer when building an innovation pipeline.

Bill Gates famously wrote, Content is King back in 1996. His forecast…“Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet”…

How right he was as we’ve seen the digital revolution establish over the past decade. On demand streaming services have overtaken traditional audio and video formats with gaming next on the horizon. Coupled with new business models, the likes of Uber and Airbnb have tapped into consumer demands making brands sit up and think what should we do to take advantage of this fertile digital landscape?

Context #1. Who?

Who are you designing for? Do you understand their cultural sensitivities, their customs and established rituals? Do you know their values? Their gender or generation? Their mental and physical abilities? Are they tech-savvy – do they need to be? The better you understand specific population cohorts the better your chance of successfully meeting their expectations.

Each culture and country has its own technology trajectory and utilisation levels. The worldwide average for time spent on the internet is now 6hrs 42mins which is just above USA’s average but some way short of chart toppers the Philippines clocking in at over 10hrs per day (source Digital 2019, wearesocial.com users aged 16-64).

Some categories like beauty and cosmetics are ahead of the curve with high digital engagement. L’Oreal was one of the first brands to realise this with their Makeup Genius app which allows users to compare before/after make-up and hair effects on-screen. This pre-purchase, augmented reality tool enables fast navigation of product choices to help consumers decide what to buy – within two years L’Oreal said it had 20 million users worldwide.

For decades, beauty brands have been heavily reliant on celebrity endorsements or experts in lab coats to target and assure consumers but today that paradigm is changing. Millennials increasingly seek individuals that they can relate to, building seemingly intimate relationships with those they follow on Instagram and YouTube channels, who ultimately steer their lifestyle decisions. This mix of opinions, edited evidence, facts and ‘fake news’ can confuse many consumers, so building trust is more important than ever.

Context #2. What?

What category does your brand belong? Beverages, confectionery, personal care? The answer to this is obvious, of course and you’ll invest great effort closely tracking the activities of your competitors. But that is just the start. Innovations don’t always come from your direct competitors. Instead, brands are often blindsided from an unassuming left field competitor, arriving at speed with disruptive and transformational innovations. For instance toothpaste brands didn’t expect their category to be impacted by confectionary companies making chewing gum with teeth whitening claims.

We look at the ‘what’ in a solution agnostic way using the ‘jobs-to-be-done’ methodology. In a nutshell this approach states that when consumers become aware of a job they need to get done, they look around for a product or service that they can hire to do so.

Procter & Gamble’s Tide is a good example of a brand that have extended their portfolio to cater for changing contexts. The core range is unsurprisingly traditional powder, liquid and convenient pod packaging, but more recently Eco-Box was introduced to address e-commerce shipment and improved sustainability stats. The brand has even stretched beyond products solutions with the test market launch of Tide Cleaners. A direct to consumer, digitally enabled, subscription service that targets ‘generation rent’ to simply drop/collect dirty/clean laundry. This cleverly allows the brand to reach new consumers whilst experimenting with new business models, partnerships and logistical infrastructures in a low risk way.

Context #3. Where?

Where is your product used? At home, at work or on the go? Each location may present a different hierarchy of jobs. In fragrance, for example perfumes have clearly defined packaging conventions. Consumers expect a thick-walled glass bottle, an elegant closure with a precise dispensing atomiser. This objet d’art is entirely appropriate to adorn a home dressing table. However, if on the go,  this format no longer seems so practical for a handbag.

In 2017 British parfumier Jo Malone launched Fragrance Paintbrush under the brand Jo Loves. A compact perfume gel applicator that is crucially handbag friendly. This delivers an entirely different application ritual, delicately brushing quick drying fragrance onto the skin rather than the traditional perfume spritz.

In a digital, augmented world understanding the ‘where’ is crucial to enable or enhance the experience, especially when leveraging the surrounding environment. Whilst outside the packaged goods world, I find EuroStar Odyssey an insightful and charming experience to entertain children during a long train journey. Instead of uninspiring views inside a concrete tunnel beneath the English Channel, the carriage is virtually transformed into an underwater viewing gallery with dolphins and whales swimming besides you to help families kick start their vacation.

Context #4. When?

When is your product used? This can have a crucial bearing on consumer engagement levels especially regarding available time and tolerance levels. For example, a parent making up baby formula has very different functional, emotional and social ‘jobs’ depending on the time of day. Sterilizing equipment, measuring and mixing powder at 3pm is very different to 12 hours later for the 3am feed in the dark whilst you’re still half asleep, was that 4 scoops or 5?

When is a crucial dimension for digital interaction too. Many successful smart packaging examples have come from high engagement categories like alcoholic beverages and beauty where consumers make extra time for interaction and brand owners see sufficient ‘value’ to deploy cost sensitive technologies and/or content.

Context #5. Why?

Why should we choose your brand? What motivates us? What jobs are we trying to achieve? ‘Why’ ties together all of the other contextual considerations and forms the heart of any value proposition and reason to believe.

Take PepsiCo’s Gatorade brand for instance with their emotive message of #WinFromWithin. They understand people are motivated to ‘win’ especially in a sporting context. This reinforces how the brand was created in 1965 by scientists to provide athletes competitive advantage through superior hydration. Fast forward 50 years and the brand found themselves losing share with an influx of competitors big and small. To reverse this trend they identified contextual consumer jobs to cater for their needs more comprehensively. This prompted the launch of G Series, primarily a ‘When’ based product range to help athletes before (Prime), during (Perform) and after (Recover) sporting efforts. This triggered their portfolio to grow beyond solely sports drinks into food to create an ecosystem of sports fuels, from chews, bars, powders, drinks etc. More recently we’ve seen the launch of the Gx Bottle, a smart hydration system that helps individuals to customise their own products, with connected sweat tracking and variable carbs and electrolyte pods, the Nike ID of the hydration world.

So ask yourself, is your brand prepared for this revolution? Do you cater for those consumers that don’t accept one-size-fits all? Whilst Content may be King in the purely virtual, service-based world, Context is King for physical, packaged offerings where content can augment and enhance the physical experience rather than be able to entirely replace it.

CDP engineer live on BBC news

August 15th 2019

Akshaya Ahuja 

Jess Carroll 

Consultant Mechanical Engineer

Mechanical engineers Akshaya Ahuja & Jessica Carroll explain how they help people with disabilities in the local community by combining their knowledge of product innovation with CDP’s extensive resources to offer unique design solutions.

Akshaya recently won the prestigious Wolff Award at Remap’s National Award Ceremony for creating an electronic armband with a pressure sensor, shown in the report, to help remind Sarah to correct her posture and sit upright.

User centred innovation is at the heart of Cambridge Design Partnership’s expertise. Staff also use this capability for voluntary projects, such as those with Remap, with flexible working hours and state of the art facilities to help them.

Jess, who has currently been assigned a new project says working with Remap is “a great opportunity as an engineer to see what your skills can do to help people – and how it can help someone’s life dramatically”.

For more details on Remap, visit the site.

Mars Petcare – smart-pill illustration

CDP create a remarkable ‘smart pill’ for Mars Petcare

August 13th 2019

A team from Cambridge Design Partnership has created a ground-breaking ‘smart pill’ to gather crucial nutritional information to help develop innovative new pet foods.

CDP scientists and engineers worked with the world-renowned Waltham Centre for Pet Nutrition on an electronic pill to collect food samples inside the canine gut during digestion.

“It was certainly an unusual request and a major challenge,” says Will Bradley, who led the project for CDP. “Mars Petcare wanted to find out more about how dog food is digested, with the aim of improving their pet food. So they asked us here at CDP for help.”

“They needed samples of partially-digested food that they could gather in complete safety for the dog.”

Part of Mars, Incorporated, Mars Petcare has a portfolio that spans pet nutrition and health through brands including ROYAL CANIN®, WHISKAS® and PEDIGREE®. For Mars, CDP created a smart pill about the size of a grape that a dog could easily swallow.

“We gave it a sensor so that it knows when it has left the acidity of the stomach and entered the first part of the intestine,” explains Will. When it is correctly located the pill opens and takes a food sample, using a miniature piston-type mechanism. “This needs to be absolutely foolproof. The pill then closes, to contain and protect the sample as the pill moves through the remainder of a dog’s digestion.”

CDP was approached by Mars Petcare to bring to life an idea for intestinal sample collection in dogs. CDP created the pills at its laboratory in Cambridge, which were trialled at the WALTHAM Centre for Pet Nutrition in Melton Mowbray, the global pet research centre for Mars. There were many studies and iterations needed to refine the design.

The samples that are collected will be used to analyse the way various nutrients are absorbed during digestion. “The scientific understanding of this whole process had basically stalled for decades,” explains Mike Cane at CDP, who has worked on the project for the past 18 months, “because no one could retrieve these samples without invasive surgery to the dog.”

Working with animals is not straightforward, Mike admits: “At all times, there were such high welfare standards. An independent observer was on hand whenever we worked with the dogs. If any dog was looking uncomfortable they would intervene to stop that day’s trial. They really do pride themselves on the way the animals are treated there.”

Once the pill passes through the dog and is excreted, it is retrieved and the data from it is collected. “The data from the trials has been analysed by the lead scientist from WALTHAM, David Wrigglesworth, who will soon be publishing his findings in peer-reviewed scientific journals,” explains Mike.

In addition to surviving the rigours of a dog’s digestion, the pill can also be tracked on its journey. “Once it was clear that the pill worked well, Mars Petcare asked us if we could also find a way of knowing accurately exactly where it was as it passes through the dog,” says Mike. “So we also devised a special interactive coat worn by the dog which picks up a radio signal from the pill.”

The smart pill is so unique that it has been patented by the team.

“Here at CDP, we’re very proud of our achievement,” says Will. “I feel sure that it will enable Mars to create innovative new pet foods for many years to come.”

For further information and media enquiries, please contact: media@cambridge-design.com or call 01223 264428

CDP Engineer wins national charity design award

CDP Engineer wins national charity design award

July 31st 2019

Akshaya Ahuja 

Mechanical engineer Akshaya Ahuja, wins the prestigious Wolff Award at Remap’s National Award Ceremony after creating a special gadget to help a woman with cerebral palsy.

Akshaya Ahuja recently travelled to a national award ceremony in London to receive an award for his charity work. Akshaya, created a solution to help Sarah Stones, who has cerebral palsy, improve her posture while using a computer.

Akshaya, 27, has been working at Cambridge Design Partnership (CDP) as a mechanical engineer for 18 months. He explains how his invention works: ‘Sarah finds that due to lack of core muscle strength she leans too heavily on her left arm when she is working on her computer. This causes her shoulder problems and pain, so she needed something to remind her to correct her posture and sit upright.’

Akshaya came up with the light, rechargeable electronic armband that Sarah wears on her left forearm. ‘If she leans too heavily on it for too long, an alarm sounds which reminds her to adjust her posture,’ he explains. “The settings can be changed as her core strength improves, so it should bring benefits to her overall health in the longer term.”

Sarah, who lives in Cambridgeshire, says she is delighted with the result. ‘When I’m working if I lean too much over to the left, which I very often do, it reminds me to sit up straight again.

‘I’ve been wanting this gadget to be made for years and never knew that there was someone out there that could do it. So thank you so much and keep doing the amazing work.’

Akshaya helped Sarah through the charity Remap, which makes equipment to help disabled people live more independent lives. Remap volunteers, who mostly have engineering training, work on projects throughout the country. Akshaya’s design won the prestigious Wolff Award at Remap’s national award ceremony recently. Both he and Sarah travelled to London to receive the prize.

The design process was carried out by Akshaya in his spare time, using the facilities at CDP. ‘Sarah and I went back and forth with prototypes, refining the armband until it was just right,” he explains. ‘I’m lucky to have an employer that supports Remap and is happy for me to use the design software and lab facilities here at work. I was also able to get helpful advice from my colleagues on the project.’

Now that Sarah’s gadget is fully functioning, Akshaya is working on a second project for Remap, working out a way for a disabled blogger attach a video camera to a mobility scooter. ‘I’ve found working on these projects very rewarding and I’m sure I will carry on volunteering with Remap in the future,’ Akshaya says.

Mike Beadman of CDP says the company encourages staff to take part in voluntary projects such as this one: ‘We are delighted that Akshaya has won this award, which shows real flair and imagination. Our colleagues here are able to use our facilities to work on projects such as this and we offer flexible working hours so that they can carry out these charity projects while they are at work. We’re very proud of the contribution they make.’

Another CDP staffer who is volunteering for Remap is Jess Carroll, who has been working at CDP as a mechanical engineer since January 2019. Jess is working on a modification for a mobility scooter. ‘The client has problems working the throttle with her hands so I’m working on creating some sort of throttle rocker. At the moment I’m at the stage of contacting lots of scooter companies for advice and suggestions. I’m really lucky that CDP takes such a flexible approach to work schedules, so I can call up these companies in working hours. I will also be using the CDP 3D printer, tools and design software, so I feel very supported by the company in taking on this project.’

More details on Remap.

manufacturing – we bridge the chasm

Bridging the design transfer chasm

April 30th 2019

The challenges of bridging the ‘design transfer chasm’ are well known in the medical device industry. If your approach to design and innovation has not fully anticipated the intricacies of volume production in a regulated environment, then difficulties will arise when it is sent to your manufacturing partner to be made at scale.

Developing high volume medical devices is a complex challenge, there are many issues beyond the design itself to consider such as usability, component cost, part variability and suitability for high-speed assembly and inspection.  Product designers creating new products from a clean sheet often rely on manufacturing engineers to rectify issues later down the line.

Unfortunately, rectification can be a tortuous process as each design change can have many unintended knock-on effects. When manufacturing delays impact the launch of a product, the direct costs and financial damage can be significant. The window of opportunity in which to sell a new product while it is still under a patent is limited, causing unforeseen harm to income potential.

Some contract manufacturers address this concern by offering a design and manufacture package, however this strategy can leave the manufacturer’s intellectual property and know-how embedded in the product. This ties in the manufacturer and restricts your ability to control supply chain profit margins in the long term by competitive second sourcing, adding risk in the future.

To address these challenges, Cambridge Design Partnership has created a product innovation model called Potential Realised. We find it offers a better solution by developing the new product within an environment where a holistic team of product development and manufacturing engineers work in parallel. The benefit of having the design and manufacturing teams working closely together is that production problems are foreseen, and issues fixed quickly, by either design or manufacturing changes.

The key step that leads to the success of this approach is a robust phase of short-run manufacturing organised by an extended design team towards the end of product development. The manufacturing team develops a comprehensive pilot manufacturing process which includes tooling and process qualification. This run provides both regulated product for clinical trials and verifies the capability of the design and manufacturing process.

The result is a detailed and tested package of manufacturing documentation alongside the completed technical file and clinical trial data. The designs are handed over with a quality control plan, standard operating procedures, jigs, and validated test methods. This means that all the intellectual property including the know-how relating to both the design and manufacturing process is transferred, enabling a competitive tender process to identify the most cost-effective volume manufacturing partner.

A key advantage of Potential Realised is revealed when conducting clinical trials. Trials normally start between design and full manufacture, so there is a danger that if design transfer requires alterations to the product, elements of the controlled clinical trial may need to be repeated. There are countless examples of pharmaceutical companies needing to repeat or extend clinical trials due to delivery device design changes during design transfer, or to take extra time to perform bridging studies to demonstrate to regulators that changes have not impacted clinical performance.  Instead, with the Potential Realised approach, a short manufacturing run for clinical trials is integrated into the development process and is conducted in a manner representative of how the product will be made once it goes into volume manufacture, thus significantly reducing these risks.

In the field of medical device innovation, Potential Realised integrates short-run manufacture into product development bringing a raft of advantages, not only saving both time and money in commercialisation but bringing forward product launch and vital product revenues.


To find out more, explore Transfer to Manufacturing.

Latest Prototyping Methods That Unlock Digital Innovation

How the latest prototyping methods unlock digital innovation

March 1st 2019
WEBINAR

How the latest prototyping methods unlock digital innovation

Wtih Tom Lawrie-Fussey
1 MAR 2019

Digital is a term that has become a way to describe how our products, and our interactions with them, mature from simple, local mechanical interfaces, to complex, distributed, connected eco-systems. A key driver for this is the desire of people and companies alike to better close the loop of product and experience, and digital services enable this ‘value’ to be extracted and monetised.

In this session, Tom Lawrie-Fussey (Digital Services Specialist), introduces the need for a pragmatic route to digital, and how Cambridge Design Partnership have created a number of toolkits to help our clients to prototype digital services. These services range from better capturing quantifiable evidence of real in-home consumer usage, through to creating a semi-simulated user experience, where technology propositions can be evaluated with consumers, long before the technology itself is actually implemented.

WATCH THE WEBINAR
Bridging a cultural gap in product innovation

Bridging a cultural gap in product innovation

October 1st 2018

Lewis Ho 

Consultant Design Engineer

Industrial design (ID) and engineering skills are different, yet both are crucial to successful new product development (NPD). But as anyone involved will have experienced, tensions can arise due to the approaches and goals of different members of the team.

Having attended both art school to study ID and university to study mechanical engineering, I work between the two disciplines, from front end ‘user centred’ concept generation through to detailed design for manufacture. As such, I have experienced these tensions, engineers often pressing for performance and the industrial designers for the user experience they believe is so essential. The worst-case scenario is when everyone misses their goals. So how do we achieve the best outcome?

This is where speaking both design languages can provide benefits. Having empathy and taking the time to understand the underlying design aims from both sides allows for better integration of the end product.

It is important that the NPD team recognises this gap and actively works towards creating a culture where collaboration is the norm. Fortunately, there are some simple measures that can encourage a culture of information sharing and a free flow of ideas. We do this here at CDP and one example is our ‘Friday Innovation Forum’, a weekly event involving different themes and speakers sharing learnings across all disciplines. Another format is a jumbo size computer monitor in our central coffee area which displays new ideas to inform and educate, stimulating coffee time discussions around hot topics and helping to align thinking across disciplines.

With my design hat on, I have a natural appreciation of ID so I spend time trying to understand the artistic intent of what the industrial designer has created and what they are trying to achieve, you can then start working with them to create solutions that embody everyone’s requirements. For example, to start this process, I like to ask:

“What is the ‘hero shot’ you have in your mind for the product, if it was on a billboard or on the side of a building – what is it that you are trying to convey?”  By asking that question I’m probing into what the industrial designer’s thought process is and creating a space where we can consider alternative solutions that could benefit all parties.

This is much easier if all the project disciplines are involved right from the start of the project. As an engineer I try to communicate the development journey, performance requirements and operating constraints across the whole team as they become known or change. By highlighting the difficulties as and when they occur it allows the ID team, or any other skill group for that matter to react and develop concepts in parallel that consider the new realities. This is best achieved through informal chats as the program progresses, it doesn’t always have to be in an official review meeting.

I favour elegant design solutions and try to stay away from what I call “glamour caps”, mouldings that have no other purpose than to hide an undesired feature. If the team all think in this way then you can create integrated designs with purpose as well as aesthetics.

It’s never a good idea to crowbar a new design into an already developed architecture. And similarly, it’s never easy to develop the usability and aesthetics of the product when too much is set in stone. By bridging the gap between these two disciplines and steering the development journey away from the ‘it’s your problem’ attitude you can create fantastic products that look good and have high performance.