The test centre in Hillerstorp also focuses on how to make the products more sustainable, built to last, and safe.
— We believe in hands-on work, Eriksson summarises it. Before that, we have discussions and research around what we are supposed to do. What fits us? What do our users need? What are they asking for? How can we solve real problems with purposeful solutions?
”3D printing has just exploded”
You’re now, for instance, producing 30,000 3D-printed pieces per year in the test centre.
— Yes, we have different levels of how we work. Take Thule Outset, the foldable, rear-mounted tent. Early on, it’s about making a mock-up, to see if it’s feasible and can become a relevant product. As we start to refine it, we use CAD systems to 3D print and try out how different parts work, to see if we believe that it will last. 3D printing is a great tool for us to get things to relate to; getting things out into the physical world is key. If you’re sitting looking at a CAD file, it’s so easy to get stuck too early in the details that won’t matter. After all, if the concept is wrong, it doesn’t matter how well you execute the components.
— When we use in-house 3D printing, we talk about ’work-like,’ ’looks-like,’ and ’fits-like’ prototypes. ’Work-like’ could be mock-ups that symbolise how we intend a product to work. The ’look-like’ is the intent later on in different grades. The ’fits like’ component, then, is less connected to the prototypes but that’s also where we take a prototype to understand how it fits the overall assortment or a specific product category.
— 3D printing has just exploded. Now we can use fibre or glass-reinforced things to really take it to test. Glass-reinforced 3D printing is a material that is made up of small glass spheres which add to the strength of the structures. It won’t be the same thing as an injection moulded piece later on but it guides us.
In order to remain innovative, Global Vice President Brand Tina Liselius explains, the company works to build networks in the outdoor communities to always understand what an active life is about — and to live that life themselves.
— Walk the talk, she says, to get a humble understanding that there are very few people who are doing what our ambassadors are doing. I don’t think I have colleagues jumping in the air, or turning around 20 times with a bike but they are truly into biking, surfing, hiking, trekking, or being active in the city.
Ellen Frisch, Global Chief CMF (Colour, Material, and Finish) designer, also looks at new innovations and technologies that can help to do the job more efficiently.
— Whether it’s technologies in terms of how we can dye a material that has better UV protection in colour fastness and can last longer or if it’s how we look at our lab dip samples. When we have a colour standard and we’ve chosen a material, and we want it dyed in that exact colour to meet the standard, there’s always a lot of back and forth from the supplier to us. We want to minimise that as much as possible, both for time efficiency and for the reality of moving pieces around the globe just to be approved. Anything we can find in terms of innovation towards technology, we are always eager to bring it in and at least try it and see if it works for our process.
— We work with advanced simulations from early on in the design process, when we don’t have a product to test yet, Henrik Eriksson continues. Once we have the products and the prototypes that we test, we can correlate and prove back to reassure. You always make assumptions and we can make sure that these assumptions align with reality later on. The more products we do, the more knowledge we gain, and the more partners that help us understand that, we can also get better at understanding what happens in a product later on, for safety and quality issues.
— It helps with making the right choices and understanding the category. That’s what I appreciate a lot. It’s not that we always do the exact right thing, but that it’s a learning thing. I like that we sometimes end projects and cancel them because we appreciate the learning. In my world, that is taking the temperature on how much we want to innovate because we want to try stuff that we haven’t tried before. And when we learn it, we take relevant decisions on how to proceed. But we are not afraid to say we learned a lot from it. We take the knowledge and take it on to the next project. This wasn’t the product we were supposed to do but we will keep it and use it. I think you can sometimes learn more from failed projects.
Are we too afraid to talk about failed projects?
— Yes. And that’s probably because we call them failed. After all, how would you ever get knowledge if not by trying stuff out and seeing the result? Is that a failure? Yes, from certain measurement perspectives, it could be. But it could also be a win. We’ve gained knowledge and insights into what it’s all about, and as long as you see it as that… There’s a lot of talk about ’sunk costs’. And yes, it does cost money and time to learn, but it’s also very valid time that you can use for other things as well. It’s also about the terminology. Perhaps we didn’t fail. We had an assumption that wasn’t what we thought it would be. Now we know that — now, we can take that on to the next project.
It costs money to learn.
— And time. It has been part of the tradition; you need to learn to be able to do it. It’s one thing to say that we do great quality but if you haven’t understood and can see the patterns, how can you ever guarantee it?
In the Hillerstorp test centre alone, you have 150 projects ongoing, and they won’t result in 150 products.
— No. And some of them aren’t even product projects. We do have projects where we know what we want to do, and then solve it technically, industrialise it, and launch it. A lot of the other projects are pre-studies which look at a smaller component or aspect of a product. We then take several of these projects and bundle them together to get insights from a technical or user perspective.
And several of your industry peers have quit the physical samples and are only working with 3D renderings.
— That’s about what innovations are available on the market to allow us to be more digital. We always want to be more digital because it allows us to move quicker as a team. But there are sometimes limitations with that, where we still need to come back to a physical sample at some point to make sure we all agree on the path forward, says Ellen Frisch.
Tina Liselius, how has consumer behaviour changed after these last turbulent years?
— Safety is extremely important, especially in these worrying times. The trend of spending more time in nature was there already before the pandemic, especially with bikes and the cities all over the world making it easier to choose bikes over cars. During the pandemic, everybody got out in nature as an easy way to live healthier and more consciously. This is a global trend, also with the fashion industry taking inspiration from the outdoors for the city life. People want to equip themselves with solid, ruggedised gear that can be converted to be used in the city as well as when they are out on an adventure in nature.
— We will approach ’less is more’ even more year by year — we want people to be able to use our range of products on more occasions and to create stuff that is accessible for many different lifestyles.
Henrik Eriksson, when you look 2-3 years ahead, what technologies will we talk about?
— From a tool perspective, we have defined tools that we work with, like CAD and visualisation tools, and we are constantly looking for new and improved and more useful ones. We are for sure looking into AI and what that can do for us, but we also know that all of the technology and tool suppliers are doing the same. AI is what everyone is talking about now. We need to understand it somehow and relate to it because it will be part of our future, and in three years, it will be something completely different from what it is today.
Have you already implemented it in your daily operations?
— For colour, not on a daily basis, says Ellen Frisch. We’re looking at how we can utilise it to give the team an even broader perspective and even more condensed research from that broad perspective. It’s not a daily use case right now, but we’re curious about how it could help support what we’re doing.
— The value of a design department is not to create stuff that others would do, says Henrik Eriksson. As of now, in the design team, we have discussions and sketching and visualisation. If we are talking sketches, what is a sketch? For me when I’m sketching, it’s a thinking process. The end result could be completely uninteresting — perhaps it’s the ongoing process of getting there that has the most value. If I create something for myself, I need that process to be able to think about the technical feasibility, or shapes that I think could align. The full aspect of a product will evolve as well. You will be able to do way more with AI going forward, for sure.
— Sketching is a process where I need to be able to think. It’s a tool to think. When I was coming out of school, a visualisation was a lot about presenting something. I still remember that during those days, but when it turned from a visualisation tool to a thinking or process tool, I liked it.
And in that, AI can help you?
— I don’t know. As of now, it’s difficult because it’s a path. For me, it’s like when you did a math test; you had to explain the way to the answer. You couldn’t just say that this is the answer. It would need more logic to it. And I need that calculation in between, to be able to think, to get it to fit, and to draw all of these parallels. That could be if it’s related to other assortments, or if it’s connected to modularity. If it is, it could probably be solved later on and would hopefully be a great tool. But as it looks right now, I don’t think we’re there yet — at least not for me. But it’s inspiring and you can see the tools that are coming, they’re powerful tools and efficient for a lot of things, Eriksson concludes.
