7 Trampoline design and development considerations
Andrew and I are just back in Australia after almost 3 weeks in China at our trampoline manufacturing plant.
As always we’ve had a really good and productive time taking our own ideas and customers feedback to them and working on the priorities to further develop our trampolines.
There are so many factors that come into play with how we move forward each year. Factors, that until we were involved in developing our products, we had given little thought to.
Our final meeting last week was to present all of our 2017 changes to the factory, through a translator to their 10 heads of departments managers. Each of the heads of departments then each has to convey the changes back to their teams of workers. This has a risky feeling each time as we try to explain, show photos, provide sheets with measurements, actual physical samples and ask for questions back to us to minimise misunderstandings (Chinese whispers literally).
On the flight home, my reflective thoughts turned to my growing awareness of why products, generally speaking, only change a little each year rather than having lots of changes all at once. The frustrations we would once feel for the slow pace of change are now replaced with understanding and a much better mutual expectation of the pace, for development.
This lead me to realise, most consumers, including you (our customer), are unlikely to be aware of what needs considering when working with a manufacturer to develop most household items.
As we hold 2015 Australian standards (AS 4989) on all our trampolines we are, first and foremost, mindful of any changes must not affect that certificate. If changes do impact on the certificate design concepts need to be revisited before signing off on a change.
Tooling
Often big changes can mean massive costs in new machines, tooling, and moulds, which needs to be weighed up and questioned if the desired change is worthy of the costs associated. Will the benefit be there for the customer, will the customer want to pay for the benefit and is the return on the investment achievable? This is where we spend a lot of time trying to avoid these costs and work with the factory with the machines and tooling they have to achieve the same desired result as our original idea.
Patents
Patents are a businesses IP (intellectual property) and businesses may take out a patent on an idea or a fitting etc. Generally speaking, it will only be for their own country or just a couple of countries. That then can leave an idea to be taken on by anyone else. If we come up with an idea or design concept and then find a patent is held in Australia we then have to come up with an alternative solution. Our factory is quite honourable on checking patents. The result can be quite nasty if you import a product, start selling it and only then be contacted for payment or told to stop selling the goods due to a patent infringement. Patents can be held but not used by a company which is where it is most tricky.
MOQ
Minimum order quantities or MOQ on desired developments are a big player. The factory needs to order MOQ of any upgrade of materials that they use in their processes, be it steel sizes, carton and packaging materials, printing or outsourced processes. If some other customer is already getting a certain steel or plastic item, etc then no problem the factory can just add more onto their existing order. Working with MOQ comes into play with every item and can delay ideas being added until our business sales growth hits a MOQ target before a change can be implemented. So every year before we go to China we revisit our previous year’s notes to evaluate what will likely meet a documented MOQ.
Packaging
We’re constantly aiming to improve packaging. MOQ, as mentioned above, plays a large role in this too. As does the factory facilities and considerations of the workers. Many of our cartons are very heavy so strapping breaking when we or customers moved cartons was an issue for a couple of years. There was nothing we could do about it until the factory’s production grew bigger and they were able to put in a “new box strapping line” and then were able to use better quality strapping, as a result, there are now very few problems with strapping.
When product changes occur, all cartons need to be assessed to see if any dimension will need to be adjusted so we import as little “air” as possible. The box labelling then all needs to be changed to ensure it meets all Australian Standards. Following this, is then how a container is packed to maximise the volume packaged, and how the workers will move the cartons through the packing line process.
Language and cultural differences
This can and will continue to be a challenge. Changing too much from one product run to the next leaves you wide open for too many things to go wrong. So slow sure and steady really is the better way. Mirroring the words they use and seeking to understand them helps us to better communicate with them, we have found this does help.
Costs
Changing anything will typically cost more, be it in labour or materials (sometimes changes can save time as well). To remain competitive on cost while delivering a quality product is important to us.
Instruction manuals
Pretty much any change will affect the manuals and can sometimes be a “chicken and egg” kind of thing, where you need the manual in the boxes with the first run of the change but until you have a finished product including the change, it can be hard to have some instructions clearly outlined in the manual for the first run of it.
The instruction manual and website are somewhat interlinked in a similar way, like having photos of the updated models available on the website as soon as a change occurs can also be a bit of a juggle but this is managed in-house by us so we generally have the opportunity to clarify with customers before shipping or selling.
As a result of reading this, I hope you’ve gained some understanding of trampoline product development and manufacturing. Our bigger vision is to persist with small incremental changes year on year. As anticipated, it has taken close to 10 years to transform what was an average trampoline design to a very high quality, durable, trampoline with a round and rectangle range we are most proud to sell Australia wide.
If you have any questions or would like to learn more we have other articles on the processes of manufacturing trampolines and doing business within China. Alternatively, you can call us on (03) 5292 1100 or message us here
