Designing Policy
FAST THINKING Magazine
Randall Straw explains why Victoria is on the verge of a design-led revolution.
New Zealand company Howard Wright Ltd was trundling along making basic well engineered hospital beds. But while going through the Better by Design program, the company started talking directly to its end suers. After that, business grew fast in New Zealand and Australia.
One of the first things the company learned was that it needed to do some hospital visiting and get closer to the people who used its beds: from cleaners, to patients, to the nursing and medical teams. "Better by Design taught us not to take note of what people tell you, but to learn to observe. That gave us insights that you just wouldnt get from conversations", says CEO Bruce Moller. "Some of the things we throught were valuable were not necessarily what our customers thought were valuable ." Hospital staff said they wanted products that were intuitive and easy to use, so Howard Wright stepped up its industrial design capacity and now has five in its design team. Design also helped the company to define and clarify its positioning. The company slogan became "Howard Wright Cares" along with the catchwords "simple,smart,human".
Moller says there has definitely been a culural change inside the company since integrating design. "Over the last five years we have become a company that is better at listening to our customers. We've been questioned and challenged about what we do. By doing this we've got better results and reduced our risk of getting it wrong.
"We now produce products that are practical, human and intuitive - products that people love. We put a lot of time into getting things right as opposed to producing technology that was not a delight to use." This year, Howard Wright won the 2010 Australian International Design Award of the Year for its latest product, the M8 intensive care bed. The M8 reduces patient handling and risk of injury by allowing a wide range of medical procedures to be performed with the need to transfer the patient from the bed. Moller says integrating design also resulted in dramatic changes to the companys economic performance. In the five years since commencing the program, sales in all markets have increased 10 to 15 per cent each year, staff has grown from 32 to 40, and the company is now the major supplier of hospital beds in New Zealand, and its in the top three in Australia.
"I think that probably at the beginning I didnt realise how great design would be for our business."
