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The desire to innovate, to question, problem solve, and to create drives the team at product development company Designworks Ltd, says co-founder Peter Rickett
This piece first appeared in the May edition of BikeBiz magazine – get your free subscription here
This article is a paid promotion in partnership with Designworks Ltd
One of the most common questions people ask is “What type of products do you develop?” The response is generally surprising. Born from a desire to ensure world-class design is both accessible and engaging, Designworks has driven itself and its customers to create the very best solutions whilst being increasingly aware of consumer trends, future and present technologies, material specialisms and effective processes.
With so many technically challenging briefs spanning three decades, Designworks has grown investment in staff specialities and training alongside equipment and facilities. Our development centre in Windsor provides design, engineering, technical and electronic design, prototyping and low volume manufacturing services, all in-house.
The process begins with conversation and knowledge transfer, our ability to absorb information and communicate our responses visually and technically inspires and drives expectation, from there we build a technical response – one that explores solutions that inform and extend the brief.
From inception, our talented team of designers work hand-in-hand with our technical engineers and electronics specialists as the project begins to take shape. Sketches and rigs are followed by general layouts, quick space models exploring ergonomics, size form and function – all these assets are shared with our clients – communication is key at every stage.
Lastly, Designworks has an enviable record of providing manufacturing solutions on behalf of customers, as our team of engineers and logistics staff in Hong Kong and China are engaged in the design process from an early stage to provide a fully-costed solution as required.
Consultancy work provides us with a unique opportunity to approach each project armed with experience and knowledge gained across a range of disciplines, we encourage open exchange of ideas – we call this process ‘ideation’. With so many unique opportunities presenting themselves to us we are able to diversify, we apply knowledge from one field directly to another.
Some such examples include; employing a Roto-molding process reserved for large format, ruggedised plastic components to an award-winning safe solution for Chubb Safes; the development of a Digital Foot Gauge capable of measuring the cross section of a foot whilst standing utilising high tolerance capacitive PCB’s provided the basis of a Red Dot award-winning, global rollout of the Clarks in-store Foot Gauge across 1,500 stores; Wearable technologies are often quoted as the future solution for medical conditions – we have worked closely with specialist material and process suppliers, creating patented solutions on behalf of our client, Atlantic Therapies.
The successful launch and subsequent roll-out of this unique solution has provided comfort and relief for many thousands of customers across the globe. We are constantly looking for new opportunities, the ever expanding cycling scene and accessories market represents a great opportunity for Designworks and our customers alike, with a number of cycle related projects already underway, we look forward to an innovation driven future.
For enquiries visit www.designworks.studio
