10th October 2013

October’s Expert Advice: GX Group

Thinking around the problem can lead to innovation

 

Claire Banks, GX Group’s business development manager investigates why you need a design engineering company with an innovative approach to product design.

 

The course of product design frequently does not run smoothly, during the life of a project the design team is often faced with the seemingly impossible.   As Claire Banks notes, the need to overcome a particular issue frequently leads to a new technology or employing new emerging materials.

 

“We have built a reputation for being able to deliver the seemingly impossible,” remarks Claire.  “Many clients have turned to us since they know our dedicated design team adopts a multidisciplinary and holistic approach able to deliver results; whether it is to value engineer an existing product, or incorporate pioneering technologies and materials to produce cutting edge design.

 

This multidiscipline approach is one of the key reasons clients consistently use them for product design engineering. When Bayer needed a machine developed to read urine strips they turned to GX Group.  The key criteria were to ensure absolute accuracy of reading and the ability to detect a range of patient problems.  By using multiple wavelength LEDs combined with plastic lenses, light guides and a CCD array, GX Group employed elements of spectrometry and reflectometry to allow the instrument to give fast accurate readings at a vastly reduced cost.

 

Having developed one product using light technology, GX Group applied this technology to value engineer a product for another client, Energist.  They needed a compact, manoeuvrable machine to produce a particular wavelength of light to help people with skin problems.

 

Claire would always encourage people to look for breadth of experience when choosing a design engineering company who offer a variety of skills and have worked in a number of different sectors. “For GX Group it is the cross fertilisation of ideas that really helps clients by allowing them access to a range of brilliant minds!” Claire points out.  “We thrive on a challenge and are able to apply knowledge from one sector to help solve problems in another.”

 

Indeed, collaboration and client input is very much a part of the GX Group design process, just as the commercial reality of the product is. When designing a product using cutting edge technology, GX Group always considers the product’s point of differentiation and production techniques.  As Claire advises, “At the outset of new product development, we explore manufacturing opportunities for viable and cost effective manufacture. Employing new technologies or materials may solve one part of the problem, but equally knowing how to mass produce is a key part of the development process.”

 

The development of an artificial lung, which a patient could wear externally, encouraged the team at GX Group to devise a revolutionary way of using polymer technology to stack fibre mats in a curve, following the lines of the wearer’s body.   Alongside this the team also developed a production technique to ensure it could be a viable product.

 

 

For further information If you would like to explore an idea with GX Group please contact Claire Banks on Claire.banks@gxgroup.com.

www.gxgroup.com /Design/Home.aspx