Dream Team 2

Best Invention Ever: Personal computer

To get the 411 that leads to great new inventions and innovations, toolmakers engage in some unique lines of questioning and observation. “The best questions we can ask a contractor are ‘What keeps you up at night?’ and ‘What do you worry about?'” says Hilti director of power tools David Schimmel. “We’ve got to figure out what the key applications are and what the trades actually spend their day doing.”

According to Stanley Works senior industrial design manager John Howard, that company has formalized its jobsite investigation unit to the point where for several years they have even had a name for it: “The Discovery Team.”

For several tool companies, the trick for jobsite research is to figure out application and product problems that end users don’t even realize they put up with every day. “You can only get so much from talking to customers,” explains Milwaukee Electric Tool’s concept development team director Jon Zick, who helped to successfully develop Milwaukee’s first jobsite radio three years ago. “The problems that they have, they are so used to dealing with them that they do not even know they are problems. So a lot of times they don’t even know what they are doing to get their job done. The biggest thing is to sit back and observe the customer and watch how they are using the tool.” A good example of that, Zick says, would be the use of lights on tools, which came about after watching users try to hold a flashlight and a tool at the same time.

In fact, visual observation of contractors in the field is so paramount to new tool designers that many are relying on video ethnography (VE) to capture the tool, the user, and the environmental data in digital action. “VE is literally videotaping end users doing their task,” explains Ken Brazell, vice president of industrial design and concept development at TTI, parent company of Ryobi, Milwaukee, and Ridgid. “It’s a way to discover the true application of a tool, because what we say is not always what we do. People modify tools and processes in an effort to more closely meet their needs. Those modifications we look at as opportunities.”

At Makita USA, all tool developments, from brand-new products to changes to existing lines, are handled by Makita Japan’s central R&D facility, located 17 time zones away in Anjo, Japan. That’s a distinct disadvantage when it comes to bringing new tools to market, says Makita USA vice president of product development Hiroshi Tsujimura. When Tsujimura’s team has an idea for a new tool or tool development, they send an RFD (request for development) all the way to Anjo. RFDs range anywhere from one to six pages long, containing schematics, research on competitive products, and estimated market size. To help get more Makita USA ideas in the development hopper, Tsujimura hopes to begin including VE clips with all of his RFDs.

“There are 300 people in the R&D facility in Anjo,” explains Tsujimura. “Industrial designers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, the testing division–it’s all there. They work on new tools for Makita Japan, Makita USA, Makita Europe, Makita Asia, so they have to decide which tools have priority.” Sometimes a tool is suitable for all markets, sometimes it is not, Tsujimura says. “It can be hard for us to convey to engineers in Japan 7,000 miles away what is needed in the U.S. market in terms of tool features and applications. Using video can overcome that so they do not have to come back to us. Everything will be in one package. This is our request. Do it.”