Technical
Door mirror evolution has delighted the customer
group of end-users together - not just our customers, but also users of
competitor products - to determine what they would like to see in the next generation of mowing equipment.
This might sound a relatively easy process but, in reality, it takes a lot of time and effort to determine the nature of the potential customers’ needs and, more importantly, their unmet needs.
An unmet need is something that delights the customer, but it’s not something they are aware that they want.
As an analogy, look at the evolution of the door mirror on a car. Initially, it was a simple mirror often requiring a tool to adjust it from the outside of the car; functional, but inconvenient. It then evolved so that mirrors could be manually adjusted from inside the car without tools. Better, but hard to reach the mirror furthest from the driver.
Electrically adjusted mirrors made it easy for the driver to move the kerb side mirror. More recent ‘delighters’ will have been discovered by watching users adapt electric mirrors to their needs; for instance, auto dipping near side mirrors to allow drivers to see the kerb when parking (preventing damage to expensive alloy wheels) and auto-folding mirrors to prevent damage in car parks from passing pedestrians.
Each
step of the door mirror evolution has further delighted the customer, but was doubtless identified by careful in-depth understanding of the unmet need by product managers.
In our case, the swing-out centre unit, when first introduced, was an unmet need. We designed it for greens mowers in the golf sector to make it easier to access for routine maintenance, and later transferred the technology to our municipal triplex mowers.
All of the information we gather is distilled into a design brief with a detailed set of objectives and parameters that the new machine must meet. It is then presented to our senior management team as a business case, which has, as its bottom line, the overarching principle that there’s a need for the machine and, most importantly, it is commercially viable. On receiving the approval from senior management, it’s handed over to our team of design engineers.
Initial design stage
The engineers create the initial design brief containing the outline design parameters and critical elements of the new product; this will relate to such items as footprint, dimensions, number and type of cutting units, position of operator, operator controls, fuel tanks, wheels etc.
The next stage is CAD (computer-aided design) modelling which employs very schematic imagery of all the elements mentioned above. The initial CAD designs will be block representations, totally lacking in any refined elements, showing the basic positioning of most of the major components.
Following general agreement with product management, who are the prime drivers of the project, the CAD images will be refined to produce a more detailed view of the machine. There will be a continuous process of refinement and review until an agreed design is confirmed.
Alpha prototypes
We are now at the stage where we can begin bending metal. Our specialist Prototype Shop, situated on-site in Ipswich, will begin to fabricate the parts and components for what we call our Alpha build. We may use an existing mower as a ‘mule’, fabricating parts and seeing how they function, before going on to the next stage. In the interest of communality, consideration is given to
“An unmet need is something that
Alpha builds in the Prototype Shop
delights the customer, but it’s not something they are aware that they want”
FEBRUARY/MARCH 2013 PC 115
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