LEARNING IN THE DESIGN PROCESS
Every designer has a list of products that succeeded. However, if they’re like me, they can also recite to you their unforgettable failures. I believe that the lessons we receive from our near misses and epic fails (as people, professionals, even family members) define and aide our improvement – if we’re willing to learn from them. I’ll illustrate with an anecdote:
Very early in my tenure with Barbour International, I was tasked with designing a new chicken leg rack for grilling. Barbour was changing suppliers, and new drawings were needed to communicate the design to a new factory. I was also asked to reduce some of cost of the unit. As with all new jobs, and all new design projects, I set about to create the very best chicken leg rack possible. I wanted it to be sleek and beautiful.
ORIGINAL PRODUCT
The original rack was made of nickel-plated wire, formed and welded into the shapes necessary for each function of the product. The rack originally functioned to hold one dozen chicken drumsticks, or an equal number of full chicken wings.
proposed design
My proposal was a beautiful, brushed stainless steel sheet metal concept with etched logo. Unfortunately, there were some considerations that eluded me at the time: The cost for the tooling was a few thousand dollars, and the piece price was significantly higher. The base of the rack had feet turned inward, which prevented stacking the racks for bulk shipping. Additionally, the sheet metal flexed. When the flexing was combined with the wide openings and slick food, the result was an expensive product that couldn’t perform its basic function to hold chicken legs over a grill.
redesign
Unwavering in the process, the design was adjusted to have better chicken leg holders, and reinforcement embosses were added for rigidity. The feet were bent outward to make the unit stackable. Still expensive, I convinced our team to move forward and the minimum order quantity of 500 pieces was placed. At the same time, my experienced boss tasked me to revisit the wire design for a less expensive option.
final design
The new wire design was simple and efficient. It lost the chicken wing option but came at a much lower price. This design has been in production since 2013, bounced around to at least three different factories (with no tooling costs), and averages 10,000 units per year. It remains a high-volume item for Barbour International.
Nearly eight years later, the second sheet metal design that was ordered still hasn’t sold the original 500 pieces – even though it was moved to a combo kit to liquidate the inventory. There are so many lessons learned from this seemingly insignificant project. The main lesson for me was to consider the end user above my own desires.