The culmination of a 3 month transport project has left me a little bemused but unsurprised by the state of the UK economy, certainly the economy that serves manufacturing. Solve 3D has its own trusted suppliers but on a large project with such diverse processes and requirements as we have just encountered, it is often the case that you require additional specialist suppliers and expertise. Sometimes you also require additional skills such as precision CNC machining, Coach trimming etc.
What has hit home over the past 3 months has been the total lack of enthusiasm for new work and the unwillingness of companies to put themselves out to oblige. It makes a mockery of Prime Minister Cameron’s ill fated mantra ‘We are all in it together’!! I think if he were to have uttered ‘We are out for ourselves’ , this would have been a more accurate sentiment to describe the components of the British economic recovery. You only have to listen to the Teachers union representatives to understand that. ‘ So long as we are not suffering the rest can go to hell’! Guess what? This attitude will not lead to an economic recovery.
Of the 116 additional companies I contacted to either supply parts or materials for quite a prestigious project, 4 of them were eager to participate. The rest were either unavailable at the point of contact but vowed to get back to me or simply did not respond to requests or emails. Twenty seven companies did not get back to me. Six of them admonished me for chasing them! One company said they did not get back to me because they were not interested in small volumes! So why have a web site? Why not state that they were not interested in smaller volumes? Why not call me and state this? Did they have to be so rude? 32 companies said they were too busy to deal with me at present and two said they ‘don’t need the work’! One spring company at the top of the Google search engine were so arrogant and uncooperative I could not help feeling ill will towards them. I put the phone down saying ‘I hope you go bust”!
Of those who did supply me, a large percentage delivered the wrong product, a similar large percentage never arrived at all and were apparently ‘Lost by the courier’! Where faulty products were returned, customer service was generally appalling. A large percentage of the sales staff had little or no product knowledge and insisted on me supplying a specific product code before I could process the order. The only thing they were all extremely efficient at, was taking my credit card details:) six companies completely ripped me off, 14 failed to supply a VAT invoice until chased several times!

The UK is predominantly a service economy!! With this in mind, I have never seen service as woefully inadequate as it is in the UK. Unless manufacturing recovers at a faster rate and in a more coherent way, we are all doomed!! The whole recovery in manufacturing is not about Rolls Royce selling Luxury cars to China, nor Dyson’s latest brilliant innovation. Ultimately it will rely on small companies supporting each other. ‘The Bigger Picture’, AND NOT ‘We are in it for ourselves’!

Well, in the interests of fair play and adding balance to my controversial if infrequent blogs I was pleased to have two 2nd year students from Hertfordshire University join my team for 2 and a half months. We were engaged in a ‘full on’ transport prototype which was a baptism of fire for the fledgeling model making professionals. I thought they would crack a number of times, and certainly the time scales required for the ‘real world’ were a quantum leap from those required to achieve a degree so they struggled at times. With this in mind , I have to say that they were great workers, fast learners, good communicators and what they lacked in experience, they more than made up for in willing. It was great to see so well done Josh and Nathan and good luck with your degree.:)

2nd Year Hertfordshire University Students on work experience at Solve 3D

Well, with the last of my 3, 2011 graduates having departed following a trial period with the company I feel  exasperated by the lack of preparation for the the world of work while at university. Of the two Model Makers and one product Designer that I employed on a trial contract with a view to full time employment I was surprised at the ridiculous myths of the workspace they were encouraged to believe. In addition, I was surprised at the lack of basic core skills from the model makers. When I asked why they seemed unable to use any of the machinery in the workshop they informed me that due to University health and safety policy, they were not allowed to use the machinery. I then asked how they made  their degree models for the  final show?

I was told that they subcontracted everything that required machining and merely assembled and finished the models !

Call me old fashioned but this is taking the course title of Model Design too literally.  In my ‘Real World’ I dont need an inexperienced ‘Model Designer’ (who cant make). Nor do I need an inexperienced graduate to Manage my experienced craftspeople!

So where do they fit and how are the universities helping to teach and promote relavent skills? Well the simple answer is in most cases they don’t and are not. There appears to be too much focus on the purely academic and not on the core skills required to be productive in the workplace. This fact coupled with unrealistic salary expectations and wider work place expectations makes these individuals virtually unemployable. Coupled with the fact that they have had to stretch no more than 6 months of real work over a 3 year period, their understanding of productivity relative to deadlines in this ‘Time Compression’ world is non existant!

Every conceivable aspect of my ‘real world’ industry seems to be wrapped up in expectations that bare no resemblance to reality. What is going on in our Universities? From my perspective, the answer is quite straight forward. The emphasis is on head count, and money making schemes will ilute and then destroy our Universities. Having been at the sharp end of one University which used an educational grant (Tax Payers money)to purchase cutting edge technology that no small business could afford to then set up a competing business which undercut all of the local companies by 50%, I dont think their emphasis was on providing ‘work place ready’ individuals. If it were , they would not have acted so recklessly (And Greedily) to kill the business of the potential employers of their graduates!

Until our Universities start to teach relevant vocational skills I will not advocate that  students allow themselves to build a £27K+ debt for a worthless piece of paper. It is my sincere hope that with the new extortionate University fees, the government make it easy for new organisations to set up intensive  ’relavent skills’ based  training by which a student can learn ‘Industry relevant’ skills in a 12-18 month period and achieve degree status.

Current degree students are paying dearly for ‘A LOT’ of free time and not much in the way of useful skills.

After Reading the latest issue of Develop 3D on sustainability in design.

I am constantly bemused by discussions and articles surrounding the subject of ‘sustainability in design’. There seem to be a number interpretations of the term in relation to design, however the prevailing interpretation seem to be that designers should be designing their products using recyclable  materials. This only seems urgent and necessary because as consumers we demand new products on ever increasingly short time scales and cheaper. As a result the world is full of poorly engineered products which break easily , don’t fulfil their intended purpose and so are thrown away. A recent personal experience is my HP printer which required a new print head. I was informed that this would cost £112!!

More than the cost of a printer??

So I purchased a new printer and disposed of a device with 99% functionality. The carbon footprint to ‘recycle’ these parts is quite ridiculous!!

The Idea of sustainability seems to revolve around the dictum of ‘Disposal’!

To my mind, the best kind of sustainable design is that which seeks to engineer products THAT LAST, yes,  have a longer life, are easily repairable by the consumer and for the spare parts to be reasonably priced. There in, lies the problem. Why? Because manufacturers need consumers to purchase two or three times per year so their business model is to design products with built in obsolescence. They then use , ‘new advanced technology’ to sell the latest product.  Yes, there is a commercial interest and while this exists the whole Idea of sustainable design will go round in circles and will just produce hot air and wasted thought. 100% recyclable material use should go hand in hand with with well engineered and thoughtfully designed  products. Designers and manufacturers must start to reverse the human condition so that it values products for longer and is not pre programmed to replace, replace, replace. Better engineered, aesthetically pleasing and logically practical products foster a desire to keep, enjoy and derive pleasure in the use of, and not to throw away!!!!  For heavens sake manufacturers “Design Better, make fewer that last longer and CHARGE MORE for your products”!

‘Sustainability’…………. Think about it!!

I can’t help myself smile when I see  rapid prototyping companies offer ‘Traditional Model Making’ in their advertising blurb.

Why do they?

After all the whole idea of rapid prototyping technology was to replace traditional model making with something cheaper! Faster! More Accurate! Better! Why do they feel the need to still offer what they claim is an outdated service? Why would you manufacture an advanced passenger train then let your customers know that you could build a steam train if required?

New companies ranged to demonstrate how their technology could help bring a product to market faster and more cheaply than traditional methods. For sure the investment required to purchase this equipment was and is considerable as are the ongoing running costs and consumables. So there is a vested interest in presenting this technology as a ‘cure all’! A ‘one stop shop’! Ten years has allowed users of this technology to believe all of the myths that surround it and like the Emperors New Clothes it has become the de-facto method of proving a design prior to production. So why do we as consumers accept products that fall apart with monotonous regularity?

Simple. We blindly accept the process that creates them; we assume that because it can be accurate, it is! We also don’t check using alternative test criteria. Some manufacturers even bypass the prototype stage and go straight to manufacture from screen.

I don’t know many designers that thoroughly check a rapid prototype dimensionally to ensure it falls within the tolerance range of the DFA. They check the parts fit together and if they do, they assume the model is accurate. I have operated SLA’ machines and know that on all of the machines I have used I had to recalibrate X,Y,Z on a daily basis, a process that is not a 5 minute job. I have used companies that produce SLA and SLS parts and have found serious inaccuracies. In the small print they specify +/-0.1mm over 100mm linear. This is no use where the general tolerance on a 900mm part is +/- 0.2mm! I have also found that the inaccuracy on X is not the same as the inaccuracy in y or z.  Achieving flatness is a problem, continued shrinkage can sometimes occur days after receiving the part. Finally, my pet hate, details wiped away by poorly trained finishers who do not understand what they are looking at and do not have the manual skills required.

Professionally or otherwise, I would never make a model this poorly and this inaccurate!

Before you shout ‘Luddite’ or ‘Disbeliever’, I actually think these technologies when correctly calibrated are wonderful and incredibly useful but they do have limitations. They should be viewed as a tool in the box but not a complete solution!  As soon as the world wakes up to this and learns how to ‘Use the tools’ we will have better design. Those who do understand how to use the tools often produce excellent products but I would say that around 95% of mass market hardware is either poorly designed or poorly engineered.

As somebody who made my first models from 2D engineering drawings, used manual machinery, marked out my work, used my hands, cut and used templates and then applied finishes to make the model look and feel like a manufactured product, I consider myself a grounded traditional model maker.  In going through these processes one is better able to understand form and fit, to develop a better understanding of materials, form, detail and function. The ‘traditional model maker is a complete model maker and so best placed to delivery complete solutions. Many companies offering one stop rapid solutions cheaply can not possibly offer ‘Traditional Model Making’ in it’s truest sense.

Cheap prices and speed to market as the driving criteria to product development will eventually hit a brick wall as consumers tire of product replacement overload . The lack of familiarity and longevity in our product choices is destabilizing a society that craves stability. As human beings, we are simply unable to live truly happy lives if we lose focus on what is important and continue to be preoccupied by  the relentless pressure to make choices we believe will enrich our lives but are in fact trivial and short lived fixes.

Solve 3D are now established in their new premises in Wilstead near Bedford. Business as usual and looking to expand our team over the next two years. We would like to thank our clients for their support during the transition, look forward to a continuation of our successful partnerships and welcome all new enquiries.