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4D Substrates Now

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4D Printing is a combination of 3D printing and a time change element that provides the fourth dimension — hence a 4D substrate is one that will by design change form over time.

Smart fabrics and 4D printing were identified by Gartner as technologies way up on their hype cycle.

We tend to agree with their assessment.

However, there are useful lessons from additive manufacturing for those of us in the roll goods industry — even if 3D (let alone 4D) roll goods are not in the immediate future.

  • We should look at how our products are made from a fresh perspective. Many roll goods are constructed using technology that is decades old. Additive manufacturing teaches us that there may be unforeseen ways to construct a better product.
  • Rather than focusing on what our products are made of (e.g., polyester, viscose) we should be focusing on what product properties (extensibility, absorbency) we are trying to achieve.

There is no need to wait for 3D printing to mature to the point that we can make 4D products. The technology for 4D fabrics is readily available now by combining existing technology in new ways.

4 Tips to Scale Up – Going Beyond Lab Trials

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Producing a new product using a sheet material (paper, textile, film, nonwoven or composite) involves overcoming a lot of obstacles and rocky patches, especially when moving from a small concept sample to a commercial product. How to scale up and achieve success despite the roadblocks? Realize that changes will likely be needed in the product and process – and the sooner these are found, the better.

1. Be Sure You Have a Sense of Urgency

Time is of the essence: you and those around you must be filled with a sense of excitement, timeliness and the importance of your challenge. If you fail, you just might run out of time. Move quickly.

2. Have a Clear Plan to Scale Up  

In the quest to make a good lab scale sample – do not cheat! Producing a beautiful, small sample at slow speed is not the goal. It only gets harder as you scale up. At Micrex, we have seen too many customers take a short cut and get excited about a small sample, assuming it will successfully scale up.

Lab scale is where you look for truths:

  • It is more difficult to run wide than narrow. As an analogy — a long bridge is harder to build than a short one.
  • Run speed – slow is easy, fast is hard.
  • Many processes fail over time, as dust or other contaminates build up, or process components wear.

At lab scale, the severity of these issues become apparent. How do the results change if you double the width, length or speed? This might indicate a limitation or provide an opportunity to prevent a problem.

3. Don’t Assume the Raw Material Will Be Consistent

As in cooking and wine making – the ingredients are important! We often have customers who claim that one batch of roll goods is “exactly the same” as another. This will be documented with a data sheet or C of A. The reality is that no two rolls of material are the same.

The real question is: “How does the process handle normal variation of the raw material?”

4. Keep in Touch with Marketing and the Customer

Most of roll goods product development is tied to specifications. In the broader world of product design, there is often no specification. As a result, the entity running a trial may make assumptions that will not align with the end customer. Be sure to ask yourself: are you using the right specification?

The Portfolio Effect – Odds of Success (Part 3)

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Here are a few more thoughts to add to our discussion of the portfolio effect and risk.

I grew up admiring the concept of the “Lone Wolf” inventor. The Wright Brothers, Edison, Tesla, Bell. Parts of what we all have heard are myth, and some is reality. Several of these “individual inventors” created what looked a lot like a corporate entity at their time. However, the myth of the Lone Wolf lives on – e.g. consider Steve Jobs and the iPhone, or Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook.

It is dangerous to subscribe to this myth. At Micrex, 98% of our customers are large corporations. Only they have the ability and resources to launch a new product into a competitive global marketplace. They understand that the best way to develop new products is by having a broad portfolio of initiatives at various stages of maturity. This approach takes most of the luck and some of the risk out of product development.

The portfolio approach for product development shares the theoretical underpinnings with the same concept in finance. In the 1970’s, “Modern Portfolio Theory” conclusively demonstrated that maximizing return while systematically controlling risk required that one work with a diversified portfolio of investments.

At Micrex we have a soft spot for drunks, sailors and entrepreneurs. Despite our better senses — we occasionally get to work with an entrepreneur in a startup. In almost all cases, they run out of time or money (which in many ways is the same thing) before their product is ready for market.

How do we handle this same risk at Micrex? Through our customers. At any one time, Micrex is working on 300 – 400 projects. Many will not succeed, but some will. It is a matter of averages.

The One Best Way (Part 4): Creativity

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Looking closer at whether there is one best way to solve a particular problem: let’s look at creativity and bringing it into your company. Can it be taught? Probably to some degree. How to invent, be more creative, or develop new products has always been part art and part science.

George Bernard Shaw wrote in Man and Superman — “Bob: I’m so discouraged. My writing teacher told me my novel is hopeless. Jane: Don’t listen to her, Bob. Remember: those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.”

While there are individuals and firms that claim to teach creativity, I suspect that if anyone really had the key, it would have been more remunerative to make inventions, than to teach others how to do it.

This is evident in the investment business. Investment advisors are everywhere, but few have their own success to show for it. The successful investor is generally unable or unwilling to part with his knowledge unless highly rewarded.

This is relevant when it comes to hiring consultants. While it is desirable to keep some tasks in-house, if you do not have creative capacity on staff, contracting out – bringing the creativity in – provides a cost-effective solution.

Going back to the original question: Is there one best way to add creativity to your company equation? No. It depends entirely on the industry, the company, the culture, the age, education, experience of the staff and the size. The charge led by “Here is how they do it at Intel” can be a disaster for the wrong company.

Oblique Strategies

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obliqueI am a big believer in Edison’s “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration”. At Micrex, we eschew creativity enhancement programs, inspiration tools and their ilk.

Problem solving, however, is not without rules. We run trials of one kind or another almost every day. Failure is a big part of our world, and learning from these failures is how we capture value from the activity. As we have found many wrong ways to run trials, we have developed techniques for when things are not going well.

This summer I was introduced to a very special deck of cards, Oblique Strategy cards. These were developed by two artists (Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt) in 1975 to facilitate what is called lateral thinking. Education teaches us to problem solve by digging deeper into a subject. Lateral thinking, or a lateral strategy, is one that basically picks one up and suggests a new start. Each card has a thought or concept that is designed to move our thinking – laterally.

The first card I pulled from the deck was, “Do we need holes?” For what I was working on at the time – the concept was break-through. Use the links above to learn more.