Enjoying America’s Back Yard

April 9th, 2012

Just like a few of my fellow engineers at GTI, I happen to have been born and raised in the state of Maine. Much of my younger life, even some of my time in college at the University of Maine, was spent with family and friends enjoying the great outdoors of the pine tree state. This seems to have left an impression with me, as I still try to head north when I can to enjoy time outdoors, be it hiking, skiing, camping, or fishing. While I really enjoy my time in and around Boston, I find the opportunities for these types of activities are limited. With that in mind, I have tried to expand my horizons and see exactly what the rest of the USA has to offer.

Over the past few years, I have developed a great appreciation for the national park system. I had previously taken the obligatory family trip to Acadia and had even made it out to the Grand Canyon at one point. But at the time of those trips, I just hadn’t quite reached the age where I fully valued the experience. Since the beginning of 2009, I have had the opportunity to visit Sequoia National Forest, Zion National Park, and The Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. I would highly recommend visiting all of them, as they each offer their own unique and memorable experience.

Everyone knows of the colossal redwoods that are found on the west coast. I went into the Sequoia National Forest thinking I knew what I was getting into, but as soon as I stepped onto the trail of 100 giants, even my already lofty expectations were blown out of the water. The immensity of these organisms was almost difficult to comprehend. Just standing at the foot of these wooden beasts, and struggling to tilt my head far enough back to see the tops was an experience I won’t forget.

Zion National Park offers another experience of natural wonders. The natural rock formations that are scattered about the park are sites to behold. There is a free bus system that takes you to various areas for hiking and site-seeing. I was able to take a walk along the Virgin river at the bottom of a narrow canyon, hike up to the weeping rock, a steep rock cliff with a dripping spring and various flora, and hike up to the emerald pools, a series of small pools that are formed by a creek stair stepping its way down through the canyon.

I won’t fault anyone who hasn’t heard of the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lake Shore. I just happened upon it last August while visiting some relatives in Michigan. Surprisingly enough, it was voted the most beautiful place in America last year on Good Morning America. Off the shore of Lake Michigan, this is a deceptively large park with scenery I still have a hard time believing is in Michigan. I made the initial mistake of challenging my cousin (a former cross country runner who knew the dunes) to the top of the first one we hit. I took a commanding lead until I got about three quarters of the way up when my legs gave out and I collapsed in a sweaty, sandy mess. I eventually made the rest of the trek to the lake shore and was able to enjoy a refreshing dip in the Great Lake.

I highly recommend that anyone and everyone take the opportunity to enjoy any of the parks in the national park system. Check out this national parks website to find some near you! (http://www.nps.gov/index.htm) I have thoroughly enjoyed everyone that I have been to and hope to get to many more, possibly even Yosemite or Crater Lake sometime this summer.

Mike Smith – GTI Inc.

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Top 5 Things for Getting the Most out of your Patent Attorney

April 2nd, 2012

As team leader and Senior ME on many different product development projects, the topic of IP and patent protection invariably comes up at some point during the product development process, especially for development efforts that are revolutionary or have potential to really shake up an industry. When it comes time to involve counsel, it is very important to work with them efficiently and effectively in order to ensure that they can provide you with the most robust IP position possible. Here are the top 5 things I have learned to do in my capacity as Lead Engineer when working with legal counsel:

#5: Realize that your counsel is your friend

During the course of the development process, you may get frustrated with your attorney, especially after you receive the first bill or two. You may also be frustrated because your counsel has gone off on a tangent and missed the point of why your invention is so cool or revolutionary. You must understand that the work they do is both very tedious and very specialized. It may take more than one pass to convert the key features that define your invention into a set of broad claims that will give you as much protection as possible. Regardless of why you are feeling frustrated, you must remember that your counsel is there to help you, not to aggravate you. You need to figure out what it will take to get the point across and help bridge the gap a little bit between the engineering and the IP. Every attorney is different in terms of what the best way of working with them is, but they all really want to help you in your IP endeavor.

#4: Cover all your bases

Many times during a development process you will have come up with the best way of satisfying your product requirements after having designed and tested 3 or 4 (if you’re lucky) different approaches to the problem that were radically different from each other. Maybe these other approaches were just “OK” compared to your “winning” design, but could still have potential if corporate would just give you the time and money required to develop them further. Maybe your ideal design was “almost there” in terms of working properly but, because of time constraints, you had to fall back to your “plan B” in order to deliver a product on schedule. Regardless of your reasons, don’t neglect to communicate these alternate approaches to your attorney. These alternate designs may represent potential avenues through which a competitor could design and market a very similar product that solves the same problem. Always try to find ways to keep the competition out!

#3: Provide drawings and schematics. 3D CAD is even better

During the course of the patent process, you will have to communicate enough information to your attorney such that they can describe your invention in a way that is enabling. In order to do so your attorney may request figures and diagrams in order to better understand the invention and how it works. Don’t skimp on these figures. Make them as clean and descriptive as you can. If you have access to a 3D modeling program like Solidworks or ProE, a 3D assembly of all the components and mechanisms is even better. Make sure you understand your own invention and how each component interacts with the next to achieve your end goal. If all you have is an idea, but have no clue as to what mechanisms or features are required to make it happen, you are probably not ready to begin the patent process until you have figured it out.

#2: Have a plan

Do you intend to go into full production and manufacturing ramp-up with your invention? Is your invention intended to be the back-bone on which you plan to build a company complete with manufacturing and distribution channel? Do you intend to come up with the invention and use the patent as a means to pitch your new venture and raise capital? Do you just intend to pitch your idea to an established manufacturer and hope they buy your IP outright? Are you working for a corporation and intend to use your IP to set up market entry barriers for your competition? These are all questions you need to think about and be able to answer. You also should communicate your intent to your attorney, as they may have some insight or expertise on how to best approach the IP effort depending on your goals. It may also have an impact on how, as an engineer, you approach the design process and how deeply you want to refine your invention once you get into prototyping, CAD, etc.

#1: Communicate effectively

The most important part of working with your attorney is communicating effectively. As an engineering director or manager, the engineer you should assign as an interface to the IP counsel is one who can speak and write clearly, is enthusiastic about IP, and is creative and can think on their feet. Of course they should also understand the product backwards and forwards as well as have a knack for what would make the product successful from a commercial perspective. The key is to help guide your IP counsel on what they key innovative features of the product are and why they matter compared to other products or devices. The sooner you can make it “click” for your attorney, the faster they can work and the better their output will be. Remember that what is obvious to you may not be obvious to your counsel.

That’s about it! Please feel free to ping me with any comments or feedback. I have also included a link to a helpful article on how to get the most out of your IP budget:

 

http://venturebeat.com/2009/10/21/getting-the-most-out-of-a-bootstrapped-ip-budget/

 

-Orlando

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Bruises, Paintballs, and a lot of Running – Team Building @ Goddard Technologies

March 28th, 2012

Team building! We all hear about how important it is so Goddard Technologies decided to get out of the office and really bring everyone together, or make them run away from each other in fear. Paintball! After the paint mist cleared and the bruises healed we all decided it was an AWESOME TIME!

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The Hybrid of LCA & COGS – Innovation throughout the Processes

March 27th, 2012

With regards to the client, the product and the planet… Examining the cost to create a product, from cradle to grave.

Typically, when talking with clients, the topic of cost savings arises.  At this point we often begin to talk about the whole picture, during this conversation we’re referring to not just the cost to manufacture, but also the real cost to assemble, maintain, store, package, ship and sometimes recycle the product.  We’re trying to see where we can cut cost from the products entire life cycle.  We try to think of this approach as sort of a hybrid between LCA (Life-Cycle Assessment) and COGS (Cost of Goods Sold) analysis.  To begin with, I do feel we, as Engineers and Designers, should have more of a commitment, and obligation to create products that not only solve their intended problem statement, but also to do it in a way that reduces the overall cost as well as reduce its impact on the planet.  Such a bright idea, yet so few companies seem to be implementing any glimpse of these details into their processes.

Below are a few basic questions we all should try to ask throughout the Product development process.

1)      What is it you’re trying to do?  Keep questioning the idea, keep iterating.  Could any part of your solution be helpful in the cost or recyclability of the product?  Make sure you’re truly done with brainstorming before you wiggle the mouse on CAD too much.  Ask yourself, is your solution really solving the problem in the best possible way?  Are there other approaches that should be explored?  Is your solution overly complex?  Often the less complex solutions are less impactful with regards to cost and effect on the environment.

2)      How are you trying to do it?  Remember to not only reduce the variety of materials, but be aware of cost and environmental impacts of the materials.  Try to use more of the same material throughout your product, this will ensure the likelihood of recyclability after use, not to mention it will cost less to manufacture.  Obviously a key factor is reducing the volume of materials, this will save money during initial creation, while saving energy during shipping and recycling, not to mention reducing the total volume in landfills.  This is such a simple concept, yet so few organizations are paying attention to this?  Often, a simple FEA (Finite Element Analysis) will prove that a particular feature or design might be three times stronger than it needs to be.  Also, always remember to never design a part you can buy!  Always do a thorough search for possible purchased components before you design a new component, especially true for gears and linkages.

3)      How is it used?  Make standard, internal components easily accessible. Batteries, light bulbs and fuses should be easy to reach and replace. We really should listen to our grandfathers when they said, “I wish the Engineers that designed it, were asked to assemble and repair it!”

4)      Where does it end up?  As odd as it sounds, difficult to repair or upgrade designs often are tossed and a new product sent back to the customer. Most often this process costs more energy later down the road.   Could your solution have another use? Maybe after its useful life?  Milk crates often end up as college dorm book cases, Popsicle sticks end up in kids crafts etc.

For more ideas on cost savings visit: http://www.halfcostproducts.com/

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Industrial Design and Engineering Collaboration: Early and Often!

March 20th, 2012

During product development many companies approach Industrial Design and Engineering as separate phases of product development. The project usually starts with Industrial Design and once that phase is completed, the project is transferred over to engineering with minimal communication between the two groups. Many companies even go so far as to use separate companies for ID and engineering, which further compartmentalizes the two groups.

Most Industrial Designers start their product development process by defining the problem. This usually involves ‘The user needs…’, ‘the ergonomic requirements are…’, ‘the client would like …’ or ‘The market segment uses the following visual cues’. There are occasionally constraints like “the motor is this big” but those are often regulated to the second tier. When this ID process is followed, the final industrial design concept is finished before it transferred over to engineering. This is often a very painful process in which the client has fallen in love with an ID concept, and engineering tells them they can’t have it, and the design must change. Industrial design often has minimal input on the changes, and ID intent is lost before the product reaches production. This results in a lot of wasted ID creativity and hard work, along with client money.

This situation can be eliminated if the process is changed. At Goddard we feel strongly that Id concepts are important, but ID should really be judged by the products that end up on the store shelves. To that end, our ID group starts with the standard research of user needs, environment, product market and ergonomics, but we also ask our engineers to explain the technical aspects including safety regulations, manufacturing techniques, COGS and any other technical constraints on the product. This streamlines the ID process by eliminating concepts that do not meet the technical requirements of the project. This also shows us where the boundaries are so that we know exactly how far we are pushing them. To further accomplish this, our engineers develop the internal components and mechanisms in collaboration with the Industrial Designers. By the time we reach a final ID concept, we know that it meets engineering requirements because we also have a final engineering concept for the internals. This makes for a seamless transition to final engineering, streamlines the process and preserves the Industrial Design intent all the way to production.

Darwin Keith-Lucas, Industrial Design Manager GTI Inc.

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