Daniel Torres

May 10, 2017

Design Thinking for Innovation

Learning Launch

Challenge  I am currently an R&D engineer for a company that manufactures pressure sensitive  adhesive (PSA) tape to be used in industrial applications.  My job is to work with  customers to understand their unique challenges and create a customized solution to fit  their needs.  A project I am currently working on requires a PSA tape that can bond well  to a particular substrate and then withstand the conditions of the final environment in  which it will be applied without failing.  The product must pass numerous adhesion,  temperature, and stress tests but must also be 15% cheaper than our current products  used for this application.  I’ve been given 4-5 months to solve this problem or the  customer will begin using a competitive material.  I am tasked with completing this  project on my own but will have the support of the sales team once I’ve created a  solution.    Selection  I had worked to gather relevant information from the customer and had successfully  created a working prototype.  I planned to send the prototype to the customer to receive  their feedback on the product’s performance.  I chose the learning launch tool for my  challenge so that I could quickly test my prototype in the market and receive useful  feedback.  I hoped to make any necessary changes to the prototype based on that  feedback.    Application  I sent the prototype to the customer for the first learning launch and allowed them to  fully evaluate the product.  I performed testing in our laboratory but I wanted to see how  the product performed when used in the customer’s process.  This learning launch  tested both our product construction as well as how easily it could be integrated into the  customer’s process.  After the customer evaluated the product I traveled to their facility  to discuss the learning launch and documented their feedback in order to make the  necessary changes.  The customer did not see the same performance that I did in my  laboratory tests.  After a short discussion it was determined that the difference in  process conditions was most likely the cause of the decreased performance.    I made some small changes to the prototype to better accommodate the customer’s  unique process conditions and sent them the new material for the second learning  launch.  This time I was hoping to focus on the customer’s process conditions and how  we could optimize the conditions in order to mirror the performance seen in the lab.  Fortunately, I was permitted to travel to the customer and assist them in testing the  material.  We found that by changing the temperature at which the customer processed  the material we were able to get the same performance seen in the lab.

Insight   Using the learning launch tool I was able to quickly and cheaply test my prototype and  ultimately improve the design in order to create a product that satisfied the customer.   By using the tool I was able to travel to the customer and witness their process which  had a dramatic impact on the success of the project.  If I had not seen their process I  wouldn’t have been able to make the right recommendations and may have lost the  customer’s business all together.    Approach  If I had the opportunity to do the project differently I would most likely utilize the  visualization tool early in the project.  If I was better able to visualize the prototype and  how it would be used in the customer’s process then I feel the project would’ve gone  much smoother.  I think I might have seen some of the obstacles associated with their  process and could’ve been more prepared for them during the first learning launch.  I  think ultimately the best path would have been to visit the customer’s facility before any  of the design began to get a better understanding of the problem.

