Enter ‘design thinking’

Manufacturing is no longer about making physical products. Nature of offerings from disruptors and resultant consumer demand have led to a fundamental shift in the way companies do business. Customers demand personalisation and customisation as the line between consumer and creator/manufacturer continues to blur. These trends have led to manufacturers trying to push boundaries in how they serve customers. They are re-imagining customer’s needs and leveraging technology to identify new business models for success.

In other words, this means doing not only what is necessary to survive digital disruption but also doing it by design: purposefully and actively, following a structured approach to innovation that harnesses the full power of digital breakthroughs and advanced data analytics. In some situations, following a disruption by design approach might lead a company to deliberately disrupt its own business. In other situations, the required course of action may be less dramatic, if not less crucial.

Impact on product design

Design thinking places the “customer” in the centre of the product design and has been instrumental in creating the kinds of easy, digital experiences that people expect in their daily lives for everything from ordering products to paying bills to connecting with friends on social media. For manufacturers it is no longer about putting an app or offering a customer experience. It is about changing boundaries of their business model.

The idea is to move from a process-driven mindset to a mindset that always begins with the experience for the end-customer.Design engineer thinks in experience terms: “What do we want a customer’s experience of our product to be like? ” While design thinking has many definitions and various possible paths to implementation, three principles stand out as fundamental to effectively design or manufacture a product.

Empathise : The foundation of this principle is the ability to empathise with segments of end-users. Design thinkers have to develop personas (representations of the qualities and characteristics of typical customers) and journey maps based on these personas’ document experiences at every step of an activity to identify the moments that matter most and to provide clarity on the problems that need solving.

Envision: Generate a variety of design options and shape them into potential solutions. This principle involves imagining the widest possible range of options through various techniques, rather than attempting to define and evaluate a single “best” product design. The ideas with the most potential can then be prioritised and shaped into models ready for testing.

Experiment: Test potential solutions with real customers, and refine them with data and feedback. Testing in a real context while collecting both qualitative and quantitative data enables additional empathy with customers and refinement of solutions.

As manufacturing shifts to an exponential future (robotics, 3D printing, Industry 4.0) it will be increasingly difficult for manufacturing companies to create value with their traditional products.To succeed, products will have to be smarter, more personalised, more responsive, more connected, and less expensive. Manufacturers will face increasingly complex and costly decisions about where and how to invest. Traditional business models based on products will evolve into a service model, leveraging the skills and capabilities of third parties.

The writer is Partner, Deloitte India.

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