Product Design in India, an American's Point of View

This will be the first of many editorials that will express my personal viewpoints of design's impact on product sales, competitive advantage and performance. These editorials will express my opinions, knowledge and experience about product design as it pertains to the rotational molding business. My intentions are to raise your awareness of good design and its benefits to your company. I encourage you send email your comments to me at paloian@idsys.com. In this first editorial I would like to share my impressions of the rotational molding community in India, India's business opportunities and the rotational molding community's perception of design. These opinions are based on my second trip to India; the first trip was two years ago when the first SARD conference was held in Mumbai and Delhi. My appreciation for the culture, people and history was enriched with my second trip. I was astonished by the rapid economic growth and pace of change which was evident everywhere I turned. To one side I saw 30 storey high rise apartments being constructed adjacent to small mud huts. High tech corporate buildings were surrounded by street vendors selling traditional Indian handmade goods. Traffic jammed streets were excavated by dozens of women hand digging trenches, while world class modern shopping malls were being erected with huge cranes. This same dichotomy of old versus new, labor intensive versus automated and traditional versus state of the art was observed during my tours of manufacturing facilities. The signs of change were everywhere. Rotational molding companies which only a few years ago were 100% vertically integrated, making everything from the machinery to the molds and parts, were now beginning to focus on a particular aspect of their business. This evolution and growth which took place in the US overa period of 100years is happening in India within one tenth the time.

The shift from a vertically integrated to horizontally integrated business structure is caused by economic and market conditions as well as overall business strategy. It requires a business leader to objectively evaluate his business based on its primary purpose or core competency. He must analytically assess internal costs and overhead based on their contributions to profits. An objective analysis should account for quality of output and efficiency, as well as reoccurring cost. What does all this have to do with design? During this last trip to India I found that a few companies within the rotational molding community were staffing an internal design department. Unfortunately, none of the companies I visited had an experienced staff or even a single engineer that could manage a design team. I believe the reasons for this were primarily based on the low investment that was being made in this department.

Staffing a well educated, experienced design department is an expensive investment in people, education and CAD equipment. Often this investment becomes part of overhead and must be amortized in the goods sold. If a department is created with first year college graduates with little to no experience and no managerial guidance, the investment can be considered a wasted expense. Amatter of fact, product designs which do go into production could cost companies hundred of thousands of dollars if they fail. Acloser financial analysis for investing in a captive design department should be based on realistic objectives and costs. These should then be compared to frequency of use, actual internal costs and quality of the end product. In most cases the costs are quite high and not warranted unless many products are developed continuously every year. These are the reasons most US manufacturers have unburdened themselves of captive design departments and used outside design firms with specific expertise. External design firms provide design expertise typically at a fixed price. The services are only used when required, saving companies the overhead costs associated with a staff. Good design requires a reasonable investment just like good machinery and molds. It must be included within the overall cost of a product and amortized accordingly. Design will have a major impact on the success of a product. If the design is poor, the product is sure to fail, no matter how well it is manufactured or what it costs. Think about flying in a plane or driving a car that was not properly designed.

Michael Paloian, Integrated Design Systems, Inc.