Design House Partnerships: CDS
About the Business
- CDS is a design service which went from just being a Manufacturer to being a customer focused Design and Make operation.
- Went from making cheap plastic components to making high quality homewares.
- Went from being Business to consumer to Business to Business
- Added higher quality product range within the business.
- Moved to ‘Design House Partnerships’, most successful collaboration was with Italian designer ‘Villessi’.
About the Product/Service
- CDS originally had one product range called ‘Focus’ which made precision plastic components and cheap homeware items.
- Created ‘Concept’ range which used importance of fashion with high priced colours and textures. — Quality
- Within two years ‘Concept’ products were providing ‘75%’ of revenue and ‘90%’ of profit.
- Focus range drastically reduced but still very important due to having five very large customers.
- Use large injection-moulding machines and disposed of the old ones, increased efficiency by 600% while also improving the Quality.
- Use ‘Cell Layout Process’ as some products will need extra processes than others.
Problems
- Designers want more design freedom
- Forecasts should be improved to achieve higher utilisation, better customer service and significant cost savings.
- Don’t know whether to expand globally and/or extend design scope as lack of experience could put them behind other competitors.
Solutions
- Could re- strategize process area to ensure design house works much closer and more co-operativly towards the company. Which will help the designers gain the freedom with the understanding they need.
Links With Lecture Material
Layout
- Uses the cell Layout process; some complex products will require more stages than others.
Strategy
- Originally made cheap plastic components, re-strategised and used importance of fashion by using high priced colours and textures.
- Changed from small molding machines to large, this increased efficiency by 600%
Quality
- Changing to large molding machines also increased the quality.
- Used high priced colours and textures which helped vastly improve the quality of individual products.
- Collaborated with many designers the most successful one being “Vellessi” the Italian designers.
Inventory Management
- Drastically reduced the focus range when it increased in demand due to the success of they’re focus range.
- Ensured to keep it stocked as it was still used by five huge customers.
