Inside the Hone PD product engineering and industrial design consultancy

What is Hone PD?

Hone PD is a product engineering and industrial design consultancy. We do design for manufacturing and manufacturing management, and we are starting to move into distribution. We develop concept, branding and packaging, design the product and develop the engineering and creative aspects.

We mainly focus on homeware, kid’s products and design for injection moulding. On the industrial side, we typically do low volume work that requires a high level of engineering.

We are always scouting suitable manufacturing partners. Once we identify a suitable production factory, we manage the manufacturing process and then land the goods in Australia. Right now, one of our guys who works at Space Tank just got back from China. He’s been inspecting and assessing the suitability of a new factory in for the manufacturing of aluminium cookware.

What got you into product design?

My background was marketing and somehow I transitioned into engineering and technical roles in oil, gas and mining on mega-structure projects. I enjoyed the challenges and worked on some cool things around the world but ultimately, I found it a little intangible. Around10 years ago, while working on the London Underground rail project, I became interested in how 3D printing could be used in broader ways than just engineering. I met this guy who had a 3D laser sintering printer and that really sparked my interest. This tech was not yet available in Australia and I thought I had spotted an opportunity to open a niche design consultancy in Australia and outsource 3D printing to this guy.

Do you collaborate with universities and research?

Yes, we love projects that deliver social impact, particularly when unique goals push us to be innovative. We worked with Monash University on the World Mosquito Program where infected mosquitos are bred and released into communities around the world to reduce the number of mosquito-borne diseases that effect humans. They have a lot of processes and equipment in their laboratories to grow mosquitos and they need custom equipment to release them. For this project we built mechatronic components and automation for mosquito deployment to be remotely operable in the field.

What is one of the more unique projects that you’ve worked on?

We worked with an Australian entrepreneur who has designed a cool new shoe concept being made in Portugal. It’s called LOBO. The footwear design incorporates interchangeable high to low heels. When you change a heel, the structure, rigidity and ergonomics of the shoe changes. A stiletto has a pronounced bend through the arch requiring rigidity through the mid-section, but a flat shoe requires more flex through the ball.

She approached us to do the mechanical design to make the interchangeability of the heel as functional and easy as possible. To achieve this, we consider the end user requirement. We came up with potential solutions for instance, do the heels click on and off or do they slide in and out? Should it prioritise ease of use versus robustness? From these investigations, we determine an appropriate way to proceed to prototyping and iteration.

How did you start employing people and what was that trajectory like?

The first thing you realise when you start a business is the need to make money! So, I quickly put on industrial and graphics designers to help grow the business. Fortunately, my business grew off the back of the full project life cycles that I became involved in.

There’s a lot to learn that’s for sure! When you haven’t done it before, you must experiment and figure it out. You make mistakes. Initially I would hire design and product engineer graduates as casuals. To bring in money I would work my contracting day job 5 days a week. Weekends and evenings, I would go to the design office in Carlton to attend the needs of the business. Slowly we had enough work for me to ditch the day job and go fulltime with the business. This coincided with putting on my first fulltime employee, so this is when things really started taking off.

What are some the key learnings you have made employing people?

One of the most important things when running a small business is understanding, why do people want to work with you. It might be that you can’t pay as much as some the bigger organisations, so I thought, what can I offer that is interesting for them. That might be job flexibility or working on engaging projects. Diversity of work, a better range of responsibility and the opportunity to grow your skills sets can be more enticing for some people than being pigeonholed by a large corporate in a narrow role description.

How would you describe your style as a boss and employer?

Acknowledging my own limitations while recognising the strengths of my employees is a good place to start. I’ve got smart young people and I want to nurture them. But I’m in Sydney and my team are based at Space Tank in Melbourne, so I give them freedom to manage their own time and duties. I ask, what do you want to achieve or how would you like to approach a particular task? I like my employees to be focused on results that they set for themselves. I encourage them to improve our processes since they are the ones who must adhere to them. I want a transparent operations environment. I say, you’re responsible for your area but also part of the whole. With visibility into the project finances, they can make informed decisions. Give them ownership of the process and delivery of outcomes.

What are some of your biggest learnings over the years?

I reflect on my business over the years and realise I could have changed some things sooner. Being stuck on who we are and how we do things held the business back. I had to learn that pivoting and evolving according to the forces of market demand allows me to stay more responsive.

Carefully consider your goals and maintain a flexible mindset while attaining them. You don’t want to spend your whole time climbing the ladder of success only to find the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall. Take your time to ensure you’re targeting the right goals and solving the right problems.

The book, ‘Who moved my cheese?’ talks about change as a survival and success strategy. It’s about how to respond when you always go to the same spot to get your cheese but one day the cheese has been moved. Do you keep going back to same spot or search elsewhere? Running a business is about adapting to change. A flexible mindset will help you duck and weave to stay on a successful path.

What made you use Space Tank as your Melbourne base of operations?

Space Tank gives you access to a wide variety of equipment useful for a range of prototyping, testing and production. You can create your own office setup and use co-working space for client meetings or showcasing a new prototype. What’s unique is the huge supportive community of multi-talented individuals who provide an amazing experience of knowledge sharing and feedback. You have many other members working around you who are running their own businesses, so even when you’re having a tough day, you feel like you’re not alone. Someone will listen and often give you a solution or connection that helps you take the next step. An important benefit is how cost effective everything is compared to if you were out on your own and had the expense of purchasing all of those resources yourself. Quite frankly that would be impossible. Space Tank offers simplicity, scalability and functionality of equipment and facilities.

Do you use local or offshore manufacturing?

It depends on what your cost drivers are. First question is capability. Can anyone in Australia make what I need? If yes, then second, is it cost effective? For instance, if it’s just an injection moulded part, then the price to have it made in Australia might not be that different to Asia. In fact, in many cases, it’s now cheaper to have things made locally because you don’t have to ship it.  

But the cost of Australian labour can often be prohibitive. If a product has a lot of assembly or a large human element in its production, then it can be more expensive to do that in Australia.

The products we make start from a base set of requirements. Some are heavily client driven. For instance, a client may want their product made in Australia or Italy. Sometimes that’s not possible because we literally don’t have a particular kind of manufacturing or machinery for that thing. In other cases, the marketing proposition drives where the product is made or the sales channel, i.e. where are you going to sell? For instance, if you want to sell in America, it can be better to make it in America.

When working with an overseas manufacturing partner, it’s important to qualify the capability of the factory before getting too deep into volume contracts. You have to ask yourself, have they made parts similar to yours before? This will tell you if they have the required compliance in place to meet the capabilities and quality standards you need. Quality control can also be a big issue when dealing with offshore manufacturing. Having things made locally can mitigate language barriers and provide the visibility you need to solve problems on the fly. With offshore partners sometimes you simply don’t know what’s going on until it’s too late.

What advice would you give budding entrepreneurs who want to build and commercialise their own product in Australia?

Don’t get bogged down in planning and saying, ‘I’m gonna this or I’m gonna that’. Figure out how to take quick incremental steps without spending a fortune. At the same time, don’t underestimate the amount of work involved in setting it all up. Being naive is good because if you knew how hard it is, you might not start at all.

Just like in life, if you want to go and do something, just take the first step and then work out what the next step is. Just do it. And so, begins the journey to success. The key is getting quick verification. If things aren’t working, figure out why. And then do it differently.

Need a top notch design to manufacturing consultancy? Contact Hone PD.