Design at 3M: Mauro Porcini’s Approach

While 3M (www.3M.com) is routinely hailed for its innovative approach to products—had it not been for the iPod, there probably still wouldn’t be a presentation made at a product development conference that didn’t acknowledge Post-it brand notes*—this global company with deep roots in Minnesota (which is actually one of the three M’s: Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing) is probably even more avant-garde than you might think.  For example, while the location of the 3M Design Center does begin with an “M,” it is far from Minnesota.

It’s in Milan, Italy.  Mauro Porcini, director of the center, explains, “Milan is a good piazza to talk about design.”  The northern Italian city is renowned in a number of circles for its design culture, as it is home to a multitude of design houses, fashion designers, and publications.  And the location and the people who are part of the scene have a strategic benefit for Porcini and his staff of designers.  Consider: Porcini says he has a flexible team of 8 to 10 designers in Italy, five in the U.S. and one in China.  Yet when we talk, he says, “At the moment we have 55 projects going on.  We work on projects many different businesses.”  So they’re doing things ranging from bathroom cleaning products to multimedia projectors.  (3M has six businesses: Consumer and Office; Display and Graphics; Electro and Communications; Health Care; Industrial and Transportation; Safety, Security and Protection Services.  Porcini says most of their work is for the consumer-facing products.)

Here’s where the benefit of a collaborative location comes into play.  Porcini points out that when they are working on a project, they have the significant engineering resources of 3M to call on, which supplements the team.  The marketing people and others associated with the project are involved on the team.  “For many projects we use external design resources, and we have designers working full-time for 3M in some of the design resources.  We don’t do one-shot projects with designers, but we create strong partnerships and on-going dialogues.”  For example, 3M works with the legendary design and engineering firm Pininfarina spa (www.pininfarina.com), which has worked on automotive projects ranging from Alfa Romeo to Volvo—to say nothing of Ferrari.

Pininfarina worked on the 3M Filtrete Ultra Slim air purifier with 3M (see the cover of this issue).  Porcini says that the project was initiated by 3M Taiwan, where air purifiers are in general use.  To make it distinguished from those available on the market, they worked toward achieving a more elegant European presence.  “There is something of the style of Pininfarina in the product,” which is explained in no small part by Paola Pininfarina’s participation on the project.  But the Pininfarnia contribution was more than just aesthetics.  Porcini explains that a technical challenge that had to be addressed in developing this 4-in. thick product was that of noise: “The more small surfaces that you have for the air to pass over, the more difficult it is to decrease the noise of the air flow.”  Enter Pininfarina: “The know-how they have in airflow and noise reduction for Ferrari cars helped a lot with our engineers in Taiwan and the U.S.”

Time & Other Challenges

Time to market is becoming more crucial.  Porcini explains that as the market has become more globalized, whatever a company releases is known almost instantaneously.  Consequently, the number of competitors and resources being arrayed against a given product is ever-increasing.  In addition to which, there are financial considerations.  “Like designers and R&D people in any corporation, we have to balance in the right way the short-term results approach and the long-term vision.  We have to keep thinking about the future,” Porcini says.

Although one might think that there are fundamental frustrations that occur as Porcini goes from concept to product—frustrations that are borne of limitations (financial, material, manufacturing)—he suggests that’s not the case.  “I think probably because of my personal attitude to life—not just work—there is nothing that I find frustrating.”  He explains, “When there is something that I might find frustrating, I turn it into a challenge, and then work to find a way to pass over this problem.”  Porcini continues, “What is challenging during the product development cycle is finding the best balance between the best ideal solution from a design standpoint and what is feasible from a manufacturing standpoint.  The product must be possible at the right price so that it can be purchased and appreciated by the consumer and understandable so that it can be a success in the market.”  He explains that a problem with some designs is that while they may be excellent in and of themselves, they don’t resonate with the market at large for whatever reason, and consequently aren’t commercially successful.  (In discussing what becomes a “classic” design, he says that it “is a combination of very good work as a designer together with that when the product is released the in market, it is the right time, right place.  It’s not just the excellence of product.  There are many excellent products that are now forgotten because they were not launched in the right moment, appreciated by the right people, and then shared and appreciated in the right way, not just by the corporation, but by the consumer.  So it is circumstances that allow a product to become classic.”)

What’s more, he finds constraints to be part and parcel of the design function.  “When you start as a designer at school”—he studied at the University of Politecnico in Milan and the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, Ireland, and now lectures at several Italian universities—“we design around constraints.”  What one is working to develop is a solution to a consumer’s problem, or constraint.  “It is not about a compromise, because the real situation is a compromised one.  To identify the right solution can be really, really challenging.  For someone with a negative attitude, this could really be frustrating.  But designers often find the energy in these small frustrations and challenges, and when you find the solution, you are really satisfied and excited.”

The Process

The design process that Porcini and his team undertake starts with understanding the consumer.  Not just needs, but to try to determine what they might not even be able to articulate.  “Think about Post-its,” he says.  “If you asked people if they wanted a piece of paper with an adhesive on the back that’s repositionable, everyone would say, ‘No, I don’t need that; I have a clip for my piece of paper.’  So you have to understand what people don’t say to you.  That’s the first challenge.  The second challenge is to translate what you understand into a product that can provide the right experience, the best, most elegant solution that’s manufacturable and feasible at the right cost.”

Once that’s accomplished, then it is on to sketching with pens and markers.  They use what he describes as “typical design software,” including products from Alias (www.alias.com) and Rhinoceros (www.rhino3d.com).  Then it is on to a quick mockup with a rapid prototyping system.  The first mockup is used for internal assessment.  Improvements are made, then another rapid-prototype model is made for use by consumers in either focus group or in-use settings.  It is back to the studio for additional refinements.  Then there is another rapid prototype model—or models. He explains that they make an aesthetic model and a functional model, or one that serves both functions.  This final model is used both internally and externally.  Porcini says that using additive technology rapid prototyping is particularly germane to their consumer product development because unlike using simple models based on foam or wood, it “delivers similarity to the final product, especially when the consumer has some interaction with it.”  Then they create a final database, typically using Pro/Engineer (www.ptc.com).  He says that work with manufacturing people occurs, as well, in order to assure that the product as designed in capable of being put in the market at the appropriate price point.  He admits that with the rise of material costs, there are greater challenges, but says that new materials are being developed such that there is a counterbalance to the rising prices.  What’s more, he says that there is the environmental consideration to be taken into account as it is becoming an important factor in the market.

Porcini sums, “It is finding the most elegant solution.”  He explains that elegance isn’t just about aesthetics, but about “the minimum number of elements that can make the product the best one to deliver the highest level of experience that I want to deliver.”  No more.  No less.  Just right.

*Porcini says that if there was a product that he didn’t’ design that he wished he had it would be the iPhone.  “I go around the world to design conferences, and at any conference at least half of the designers refer to the iPod or the iPhone in their presentations.  For designers, it is really the ideal product because it is more than a product.  It is the concretization, the materialization, of the typical vision of designers.  The experience of the product is in the packaging, the literature, the store, the community, the brand—they’re all about design.  What I love about Apple is that design is completely embedded in the brand.”