Inno Design Tech Expo 2014

During December this year, YHK DesignLimited had joined the Inno Design Tech Expo 2014 held in Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre. The Expo attracted more than 730 exhibitors from all over the world according to HKTDC. It was a great show for people searching for creativity and innovation. 

Some photo to sum up the fair this year:

If you had missed the Expo, and looking for product design services. Please visit our website for more information or email us.

Consumer purchase behaviour for new brand product

A brand is regarded as an important part of a business. A good branding can elevate and differentiate products or services over competitors. In order to build a good brand, the product or service offer has to meet consumers' needs and wants. Therefore, it makes the study of consumer purchase behaviour indispensable.

Last year, I had started a research on the consumer purchase behaviour for my Master's degree in Newcastle University. The research outcome got recognized by the professors and awarded the Best Dissertation for the course. The study seeks to examine the differences occurring in the relative importance of product attributes between popular brands and new brands and other factors influencing consumer purchase behaviour for a new brand product based on existing literature. The reason for researching the differences between the popular and new brands was because there are many more new brands than popular brands in the market that want to know the behaviour of their consumers in order to catch up with their strong competitors, with their limited resources and reputation. Many existing research neglected new brands' weakness, which is the brand influences. Brand's reputation is built on history of creating a product satisfactorily satisfies the consumer's wants and solves their problems. A famous brand can actually "control" one's purchasing behaviour. Therefore, what a new brand needs to sell their product is believed to be different from the famous brands.

The study had drafted out a few factors in influencing the purchase decision between popular and new brands, and used headphones as the object for researching. There are 6 hypotheses in total and one of the hypotheses that I am writing here is to find out the significant differences occur in the relative importance of product attributes concerning consumer decision making with regard to the purchase of a popular brand and a new brand product. The results showed that there are significant differences in ranking the importance of product attributes between the popular brand and new brand. For popular brands, the top attributes are technical quality, price and material durability. On the other hand, for new brands, the top attributes are technical quality, product design and price. For the least important attribute for popular brands is product packaging and country of origin (CoO) for new brands.

The results hold important practical implications for the marketers or managers for new brands. The results show that technical quality, product design and price are the top attributes for new brands, which contains a different attribute, product design, as compared with the popular brands. Therefore, it alerts new brands managers to increase attention to product design rather than material durability. Furthermore, the new brands should choose a country that they can reduce their production cost as CoO is the least important for new brand product. Consumers will not be so bothered by a product made in any undeveloped countries. It is important to produce a product that suit consumer's taste and preferences, thus, building up a product that most suited consumer's need and want is an effective way to compete in the global competitive market.

Anyone who are researching in the similar topics are welcome to share your thoughts and comments with me.

Industrial Design and Mechanical Design

Both industrial design (ID) and mechanical design (MD) falls into the process of product design development. In the current marketplace, ID and MD can be equally important.

Industrial Design (ID)

Industrial design begins at the very beginning of the development process. ID requires skills and knowledge of ergonomics and creativity. It is to create attractive, stylish, and innovative products at the end. The process of ID is from outside-in. The main objective is to take care of the user's vision experience by creating something attractive and user-friendly. Often, industry design creates problems to mechanical engineers if the design does not give enough room for the internal parts.

Mechanical Design (MD)

Mechanical design is mostly done by mechanical engineers, who take the inside-out approach during the product development. Their job is to create a product with real functionality and performance. Sometimes thermal and structure analyses are needed to predict the behavior of the product under different kinds of stress or environment. Most mechanical engineers are familiar with the manufacturing process. Therefore, they will be able to select the most suitable material and ways of manufacturing it. However, the engineer will not pay much attention to the appearance of the product, because they emphasize achieving functionality, not visual appearance.

In the current competitive marketplace, it is advised that both ID and MD be included into your product development. It is to make sure your product is well designed for the user and also cost efficient to manufacture. Having one product with only ID will have potential problems during the manufacturing process and delay your product launch. Products with only MD might not please your target audiences. Hence, it is better to have ID and MD at the beginning of the product development, in order to create an ultimate product style and performance for the target market.

Visit our company to find out more, YHK Design Limited, a product design and manufacture company.

Website: www.yhkdesign.com

Email: info@yhkdesign.com

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How to pick the right product design company

Finding a good product design company for products

Finding the right product designer is always harder than finding the right web or graphic designer. This is because the tasks that a product designer handles are far different from that of web or graphic designers.

Product design projects will always need a lot of follow-ups, tests, prototypes, and sometimes a repetition of the process.

Therefore, you need to find a product designer/company that knows sketching, 3D drawing, technical drawing, prototyping, material specifications, and it’s even better if they are familiar with manufacturing.

Here are few points for you to consider when looking for a good product designer:

1) Portfolio
First of all, you should check their portfolio to see if they are competent when it comes to designing. Look at the range of product designs they have done and see if they have worked on something similar to the nature of your product. However, sometimes, looking for designer/company that has not worked on something similar will give your product a fresh take, in terms of design.

2) The size of the company

The size of the company will affect the type of services that you will receive. Larger firms will have a large range of resources and also a longer history. Smaller firms might not have huge resources but they will be more flexible and are more likely to take on smaller jobs. Therefore, it is relatively important to choose the right size of firm in relation to your project.

3) Competence of the designer and the company

Product designers are different from web or graphic designers. Product designers have to be good in not only design, but they also have to be knowledgeable about materials and manufacturing. It is important for them to create something that is feasible and manufacturer friendly, yet beautiful. There are many product design companies on the market. However, not many of them have direct access to manufacturing facilities for making prototype or for mass production, which creates problems such as designs that are not suitable for manufacturing or designs that include unsuitable material. Some product design companies are good at creating beautiful and stunning visuals, but fail when it comes to producing something that really works. Thus, it is important to find a product design company that is familiar with manufacturing procedures in order to prevent unnecessary problems during production.

4) Customer service

Communication is one of the most important elements between a product designer and a client. The outcome of the project will not be good if there is poor communication. Thus, it is important to find a company that communicates well and is responsive.

Lastly, the most important thing is to find a company that is trustworthy and one with which you feel comfortable. Doing business with a product design company is always a long-term relationship, because developing a good product requires time and effort. 

Visit our company to find out more, YHK Design Limited, a product design and manufacture company.

Website: www.yhkdesign.com

Email: info@yhkdesign.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/yhkdesign

Design Thinking

The term "design thinking" appears very often nowadays. People all around the world, especially designers, are talking about design thinking. As a professional product design company, we are also talking about design thinking. So, what is design thinking actually about? Some people might still have no idea on the term as yet. If you still do not know the term yet, it is not too late to know it now. Design thinking is basically about problem solving and producing human-centered design products.

It involves four main stages.

1. Determine the problem(s)

This is the most important process. It requires a group of people who are tasked to look for problems to solve. They are supposed to define the problems and revise them before the real creation of the design.

Design thinking in determining the problems requires lots of questioning on the product or design. "Why" and "how" are the words that will always use during the process, to find out all the issues that might occur in the future. By determining the problems, we can concentrate on solving the right problems with the right solutions, which explores our creativity.

2. Creating Options

Looking at a problem in many different ways or perspectives always gives us better and more results. Some problems may have obvious solutions, but bringing in different solutions allows designers to have more options and better creativity on the issues. Most designers are always solving problems in the same way every time, which might narrow down creativity. Therefore, the design thinking process suggests that better solutions will occur when more people or perspectives are involved.

3. Picking the right one

After the creation of options, it is important to choose the best option to carry on. There will be a chance of combining ideas to create the best idea. Therefore, one has to be careful when considering the explored ideas. Every new idea can be weak and fragile, thus, it is important to embrace a handful of potential results.

Optional Stage

Sometimes it is difficult to find the best solution on the first try. Hence, a repeat of step 2 and 3 is needed, in order to find the best answer.

4. Building the best idea

At this stage, it is the time to test your best idea by making a prototype. A prototype allows you to see the "hidden" or complex problems that were missed. It tells you if your idea is feasible. Therefore, making a prototype is extremely important before mass production.

Design thinking is suitable for all companies that are...

- Developing a new product

- Changing an existing product

- The improvement of innovation culture

- Expanding their product ideas

YHK Design Limited is a Professional Product Design & Manufacture Company that build product designs that are ready for manufacturing and provides sample/mass manufacturing.

Email: info@yhkdesign.com

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Website: www.yhkdesign.com

How many fluorescent lamp is enough in a room? Steps of simple calculations to determine.

Sometimes your room is too dark? How can we calculate the number of lighting needed in a room? Too little lighting will bring discomfort to our eyes. Therefore, it is important for us to know the minimum lighting required in a room. By seeking a lighting engineer, it is the best way to solve the problem. However, it may be too expensive for many of us.

In fact, for a simple space area, we can calculate the number by ourselves using some basic calculation techniques. Here will show the steps on how to do it with an example:

A lighting design for a small drawing office, 6m², with a 3m ceiling height. Luminaires are to be used whose photometric data are given in Tables. The Luminaires are general diffusing distribution. Triphosphor fluorescent lamps will be used. The lamp will be bulk replaced at 12,000 hours. The office room reflectances are 0.7 ceiling, 0.3wall and 0.2 floor. The lighting is cleaned every year. 

With the information given above,

Step 1: Determine the mounting height

Mounting height(H)= (ceiling height- desk height) 3- 0.8 = 2.2m

Step 2: Determine the room index, K.

K= L x W/ (L+W) x H

K= 6 x 6/ (6+6) x 2.2

K= 1.4

Step 3: Obtain the Utilisation Factor, UF

UF = 0.49

Step 4: Determine Maintenance Factor, MF

MF = LLMF x LSF x LMF x RSMF

MF= 0.84 x 0.75 x 0.88 x 0.9

MF= 0.5

Step 5: Determine the required illumination level

E = 600lux

Step 6: Solve for the total number of luminaires needed

Assume that we use 3 x36W lamp luminaires. Thus, from Table, the initial lumen for a 36W tri-phosphor fluorescent lamp is 3350 Lumen (ø)

N= E x Area/ n x ø x UF x MF

N= 600 x (6x6)/ 3 x 3350 x 0.49 x 0.5

N= 10.2 = 11 luminaires needed

Therefore, a minimum of 11 luminaires is needed for small drawing room, 4 columns and 3 rows will be a good choice (total of 12 luminaires). 

Many of the data can be obtained from the manufacturer. Therefore, the value given in this example might not be accurate. Please use manufacturer's data to ensure the accuracy.

*Tables are obtained from Temasek Polytechnic.

If you need help in designs, such as interior design, product design, graphic design, marketing design, come and talk to us, YHK Design Limited or info@yhkdesign.com.

Problems and solutions for plastic injection molding

Plastic products are mostly produced by injection molding machine. With the injection molding method, there are often defects occurred in plastic products, such as jetting, flow marks, short shot and many more. Therefore, it is important for us to know the defects as to ensure a high quality product.

Most commonly, defects happen when there are errors in materials used for the product, mold itself or the machine setting.

Some of the common defects and solutions are:

Defects name	Descriptions	Possible solutions
Bubble	It is referred to the phenomenon where bubble or blister occur within the plastic product.	- Increasing the back pressure - Dry the material properly - Decrease the material temperature - Reduce the injection speed
Drag marks	It is referred to the phenomenon where scratches occur when it is ejected from the mold.	- Maintenance of the mold itself
Flash	It is referred to the phenomenon where excess plastic overflow and penetrate out of the mold gap.	- Reduce the injection speed - Reduce the injection pressure - Reduce the material temperature - Increase the clamping pressure
Flow marks	It is referred to the phenomenon where wave pattern is formed around the gate.	- Increase the mold temperature - Raise the gate and runner.
Jetting	It is referred to the phenomenon where a snake line of material formed on the surface of the molded product.	- Reduce the injection speed - Increase the mold temperature
Short shot	It is referred to the phenomenon where the plastic does not reach certain portions of the mold.	- Increase the injection speed - Increase the pressure - Increase ventilation lines
Silver streaks	- It is referred to the phenomenon where circular marks appear at the molding surface.	- Proper drying of material before use - Increase back pressure
Sink mark	It is referred to the phenomenon where indentation occurs on the surface of the plastic product.	- Increase injection speed - Increase back pressure - Reduce material temperature
Warping	It is referred to the phenomenon where deformation caused by difference in the degree of shrinkage.	- Increase injection pressure - Increase barrel temperature
Weld Line	It is referred to the phenomenon where the two different flow fronts meet and formed a narrow V-shaped line.	- Increase injection speed - Increase mold temperature - Increase material temperature

The following information is provided for reference only, without guarantee of any kind. It is encouraged to verify all information with experienced plastic experts, as there are always specific conditions that cannot be anticipated.

Please feel free to contact YHK design for more plastic advices or new product development.