Scientists had a promising idea to tackle the menace of slippery floors, but advice from a design mentor helped them realise they needed to review their strategy for commercialising the technology.
Water spillages on floors are a major source of injuries. They’re one of the most common causes of accidents in manufacturing and service businesses. And they account for over half of reported accidents involving the public in environments like shops, hotels, restaurants, offices and leisure centres. In the US, slip and fall accidents have doubled in the last decade. Here, supermarkets spend millions of pounds settling claims related to slip and trip accidents.
Technology being commercialised by a team at Isis Innovation, Oxford University’s technology transfer office, promises a solution. It can detect water on floors through a device that researchers planned to locate out of sight and out of reach in any ceiling.
A Design Council mentor, product designer David Maddison, worked with the Isis team on how to commercialise the technology. At the time of the intervention the team had already agreed a trial installation in a major supermarket and wanted the mentor to run this and help commission an agency to build a prototype. A brief had been prepared and the team already had a number of responses from designers.
Beyond expectations
The first mentoring session made it clear the impact of design could be much broader, says David Baghurst, Head of Isis Enterprise: ‘The biggest intervention on the project was when the designer asked us to how we were planning to install and maintain the system, given that supermarkets would require this to happen at night. It was an obvious question addressing a practical issue, but we hadn’t considered it yet. The whole concept of the product and the trials changed with that question.’
More probing by Maddison raised other issues about how the prototype would tie in with existing procedures for dealing with in-store spillages. He looked at questions including the range and size of the device, whether it could cope with different ceiling and aisle heights, and distinguish between water and reflective materials, and whether it would need its own power supply.
Reducing risk
The prototype brief prepared by the team hadn’t been designed with a supermarket installation in mind, so Maddison recommended postponing the trial until the team had done more development work and tested the device in-house. ‘At this stage, the intervention was about managing risk. I felt they needed a more sophisticated product to take to the client and, by delaying the trials, the project was more likely to succeed in the long term.’ Isis Project Manager David Churchman added: ‘The mentor made us realise that building an early-stage prototype was a long way from the mass-produced product that would be installed in supermarkets.’
Product development
Maddison also recommended basing the proposition behind the technology on a clearer understanding of its users’ needs. That would mean visiting supermarkets and getting managers to feed their ideas into the development process and the design of the trials. The brief was reviewed and Maddison worked with the Isis team to choose an agency to build a more advanced prototype. He also helped them manage the interaction with the agency and iron out problems as they arose.
Taking stock
The project has shown that expert design advice can help the UK find viable markets for research outputs. In this case it has reduced risk, gained buy-in from potential customers, and demonstrated the importance of putting the user at the heart of the process.
It has also demonstrated that small amounts of spend on design at the onset of the technology transfer process can result in larger gains later on.
The mentoring process helped us to better understand the language of potential licensees. It became clear that we needed partners with experience in sensor technologies who could easily integrate the technology into their current product offering. Overall, the process allowed us to reduce the risk associated with the project and build value into the proposition.
David Churchman, Head of Isis Enterprise
Outcomes
The project is still in development, but the design work has helped move it forward. The team have a working prototype and are in advanced discussions with a number of companies in the retail or oil industry about a license deal to take the technology to market.
Technology transfer offices – what are they?
Technology transfer is the process that develops practical applications for the results of scientific research. Many businesses and universities have technology transfer offices (TTOs) dedicated to identifying promising technologies and finding ways to commercialise them.
Their main tasks include negotiating and advising on intellectual property issues, facilitating spin-out companies and setting up licensing agreements.
Maddison Design
Product designer David Maddison mentored the Wet Floor Detector team and helped them decide for themselves how working with a designer could best add value to their ideas and to their business's future potential.
Find out more about Maddison Design at www.maddison.co.uk