Product Design and Mass Manufacture Design Optimization

Summary: By working closely with potential customers as well as suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors, designers can optimize the products they create while keeping tooling and assembly costs down. In this program designers from Britain's Kinneir Dufort employ market research and model-making technology to redesign a peak flow meter, used by people with asthma to measure lung function. To keep up with competitors the device had to be functional, sophisticated, and cheap. Incorporating what they learned from focus groups, the designers developed a look, shape, and feel for the device, then used rapid prototyping technology to transform CAD coordinates into a physical model. Viewers get a detailed look at CGI, CAD, and model-making technology.