13 February 2014
“I have no idols. I admire work, dedication and competence.”
Ayrton Senna
Claire Banks, GX Group’s business development manager investigates why you need a specialist design engineering consultancy that is renowned for their innovative approach to product design, like their division, GX Design Engineers.
“We have built a reputation for being able to deliver the seemingly impossible,” remarks Claire. “Many clients have turned to us since they know our dedicated design team, GX Design Engineers, adopts a multidisciplinary and holistic approach able to deliver results; whether it is to value engineer an existing product, or incorporate pioneering technologies and materials to produce cutting edge design.
The course of product design frequently does not run smoothly, during the life of a project the design team is often faced with the seemingly impossible, but being part of a larger group can help problem solve. As Claire Banks notes, the need to overcome a particular issue frequently leads to a new technology or employing new emerging materials often as a result of crossover ideas from other divisions within the group.
Through their other divisions GX Group can adopt a multidiscipline approach to product development, this is one of the key reasons clients consistently use them for product design engineering. When Bayer needed a machine developed to read urine strips they turned to the team at GX Group. The key criteria were to ensure absolute accuracy of reading and the ability to detect a range of patient problems. By using multiple wavelength LEDs combined with plastic lenses, light guides and a CCD array, GX Group employed elements of spectrometry and reflectometry to allow the instrument to give fast accurate readings at a vastly reduced cost.
Having previously developed one product using light technology, GX Group applied this technology to value engineer a product for another client, Energist. They needed a compact, manoeuvrable machine to produce a particular wavelength of light to help people with skin problems.
Claire would always encourage people to look for breadth of experience when choosing a design engineering company who offer a variety of skills and have worked in a number of different sectors. “For GX Group it is the cross fertilisation of ideas that really helps clients by allowing them access to a range of brilliant minds and services!” Claire points out. “We thrive on a challenge and are able to apply knowledge from one sector to help solve problems in another. We are unique in offering electronics alongside so many services under one roof which really does help to apply a cohesive approach to product design and development.”
Collaboration and client input is another vital component to the GX Group design process, just as the commercial reality of the product is. When designing a product using cutting edge technology, GX Group always considers the product’s point of differentiation and production techniques. As Claire advises, “At the outset of new product development, we explore manufacturing opportunities for viable and cost effective manufacture. Employing new technologies or materials may solve one part of the problem, but equally knowing how to mass produce is a key part of the development process.”
The development of an artificial lung, which a patient could wear externally, encouraged the team at GX Group to devise a revolutionary way of using polymer technology to stack fibre mats in a curve, following the lines of the wearer’s body. Alongside this the team also developed a production technique to ensure it could be a viable product.
“Our innovative, creative and relevant solutions have turned many brilliant ideas into a commercial reality for so many clients in a wide number of sectors including medical and scientific, security and defence as well as automotive clients and individual developers,” concludes Claire.