The tools were simple. White boards, pens and colorful sticky notes.
The problems were not: Could Coca-Cola develop a line of beauty products that would sell • How could McDonald’s cut the carbon footprint of its drive-through windows, where car engines idle as motorists wait for food orders?
Twenty-six representatives from some of the Pittsburgh’s largest corporations, universities and growing technology companies tackled the exercises during a lesson on building simple, physical product prototypes.
Product development company Daedalus hosted the lunchtime event in its East End workshop and offices. The event was an idea exchange for a group called the Culture of Innovation Collaborative, which for two years has worked to strengthen creative processes at local businesses.
“How many of you use prototypes as part of the DNA of your company?” asked Lou Musante, managing partner of Allison Park-based Echo Strategies, after those in attendance heard Daedalus President Matt Beale’s talk about the concept of prototypes.
About half raised their hands.
Musante’s company, which organized the collaborative, specializes in research, strategy and leadership development services. He formed the collaborative to help companies — including Bayer Corp.’s MaterialScience unit, H.J. Heinz Co., Medrad Inc., Mine Safety Appliances Co. and PPG Industries Inc. — build work cultures that encourage employees, along with customers and others to exchange ideas on new products or solving problems.
Musante modeled the collaborative after the Young Presidents Organization, which a New York manufacturer started in 1950 as a way for business leaders to meet regularly and learn from each other.
Nineteen chief technology officers and senior research and development professionals from large corporations form the local group with Echo, Daedalus and communications and design company ThoughtForm Inc. of the South Side.
Daedalus’ researchers, designers and engineers have refined the art of building prototypes over the firm’s 32-year history.
In recent years, Daedalus has worked on such products as a plug-in device that turns electronic devices on and off using Wi-Fi, along with a defibrillator vest, an infant tub that monitors the temperature of incoming water and a magnetic refrigerator clip shaped like a fish.
For the Culture of Innovation Collaborative event, Daedalus invited clients including Renal Solutions LLC of Warrendale, which sent two representatives.
Beale showed photos of the process used to develop the company’s Alliance kidney dialysis machine about 2005. Daedalus used wooden blocks sized to represent the machine’s components, Velcro strips and a board to place the parts in order along two tracks — one representing blood flow, the other the path of treatment fluids.
The process helped Renal Solutions solve some ergonomics issues, improve the flow of fluids and “give a nice, clean look to the machine,” recalled Doug Zatezalo, vice president of engineering and new product development. Dialysis patients were invited to look at the mockup and suggest changes.
Engineers working alone can model a product using special software. But “with this type of machine, people getting a feel for it is much better than trying to see how it works on a computer screen,” Zatezalo said.
With the wooden pieces, “we could get into a room and work through the different options quickly. This was a really crude process, but it gave us a really good idea” of how the machine should work, he said.
Corrine Herlinger, technical writer and illustrator with Renal Solutions, worked on the McDonald’s drive-through problem at the collaborative’s event. Using Daedalus’ lessons, her group came up with ideas to reduce food packaging and take orders by e-mail or online.
Steve Szakelyhidi, associate marketing manager with ClearCount Medical Solutions Inc., said Daedalus has worked on the Ross company’s surgical sponge-tracking products.
Daedalus helped him fine-tune software and controls that an operating room nurse would use to run ClearCount’s system. Looking back, he said, he had some lofty ideas, but a Daedalus engineer and some quick models “brought it back to reality.”