Example Reflection - Learning Launch

Challenge

The year 2020 has been a nightmare for all of us. The sudden attack of the new virus                    CO-VID 19 (Corona Virus) has drastically changed the market condition. I’ve been working in  an automotive industry (country of origin: Mexico) and it has also been affected by this  pandemic. The sales were down, and the company couldn’t meet the projected sales target  and were literally burning cash on the employees despite poor sales in the market. In order  to sustain in the market, we came up with several ideas to sustain, with respect to the current  market situation. Having general awareness of the present situation “Ventilators” were the  need to save the lives of the people infected with the virus.

Selection

There weren’t enough ventilators to face COVID-19, which motivated us to be agile and search  for ways to contribute through our knowledge and manufacturing capabilities to save lives.  That’s why we’ve selected to try the Learning Launch tool as it is an experiment which can  quickly test an idea.

Application

In our organization we have been manufacturing structures for the automotive industry. We  joined forces with the strategic partners for contributing to the production of intensive care  medical ventilators, that will aid in the solution to this problem. First, we selected 3  respirator’s design among 45 respirators worldwide, selecting only the ones that met the  necessary characteristics to care for people in critical hospitalization status.  In order to use  the manufactured prototypes, we had to submit them for series of tests regulated by the  COFEPRIS (a Mexican Health Authority), which included laboratory tests on physical  engagement. The assembly line was also audited who gave us green light for mass production.  We’re targeting production to reach 500 ventilators per week.

Insight

The design thinking tool “Learning Launch” helped us to identify the solution to a specific  problem through the idea that satisfies specific need for specific people which is better than  the current alternatives in the market.  We all moved by the same spirit of helping people  who needed respirator as we believe that is the most motivating about the project. We all  accepted the challenge, selected the proper design tool and applied it successfully which  helped in serving the dual purpose of contributing to society and to sustain in the market  during the crisis.

Approach

We have gone through and studied all the design thinking tools but the “Learning Launch” is  the most appropriate tool as it’s based on the concept of fast & cheap experiments.

Since I discovered that the most valuable aspect is to create hypothesis and selecting the best  idea with fast and cheap experiments next time I would use the learning launch activity as a  starting point for a series of design thinking activities.

