The Design Academy consulted with GE Healthcare on mentoring and unifying the global design team through a Design Philosophy, The Magic of Science and Empathy, and values which is currently being translated into a brand design language experience.

The Global Design Philosophy presented by Bob Schwartz, GEHC General Manager Design, was rated by GE Healthcare one of their Top 5 Highlights at RSNA 2010 show in Chicago.

'The 'Magic of Science and Empathy' initiative is GE Healthcare's own drive to connect the functional features of its products with emotional benefits. We look to meet the healthcare industry's unmet needs," says Schwartz, General Manager of Global Design at GE Healthcare.

Refer to Tales from the Technology Pavilion http://newsroom.gehealthcare.com/articles/top-five-highlights-from-rsna-2010/
http://newsroom.gehealthcare.com/articles/ScienceandEmpathy/

The Design Academy developed a color palette based on the DNA strategy.

Healthcare is a major issue in our culture that requires a design's eye to bring a holistic and empathic experience to patients, caregivers, and medical professionals. The Design Academy is experienced in creating the innovative framework to transform institutions to realize their human and social capital to heir greatest advantage.

LA AUTO SHOW – Increasing the Status

The Design Academy are founders of the highly successful Design Los Angeles, a conference for automotive designers held annually during The LA Auto Show's two press days in November.

Los Angeles area is a world leader in automobile design with many major car studios and coach builders. It has the unique characteristics of car culture, fashion, entertainment, and demographic diversity. It is also the home of Art Center College of Design, one of the world's leading institutions for educating automobile designers. Design Los Angeles aims to provide unique and relevant programs to the international auto design community.

Integral to Design Los Angeles, is the highly publicized Design Challenge, which provides an opportunity for the auto studios to explore new ideas related to concepts of the future that may be relevant to strategy.

INDA
Association of the Nonwoven Fabrics Industry

Connecting Suppliers and Designers through Innovative Methodologies

The largest percent of nonwovens are used in diapers---YES diapers… but they play a very important role in the automotive industry. The Design Academy is helping INDA explore the innovative opportunities and connections of nonwoven materials to the automotive industry.

Chuck Pelly gave a speech at the RISE Conference in Baltimore, September 22nd, 2010 "Re-thinking Nonwovens".

Let's hear your thoughts on how nonwovens can contribute to the Automotive industry. Email your innovative ideas to info@thedesignacademy.com

LIFETIME BRANDS

Lifetime Brands is "North America's leading resource for nationally branded kitchenware, tabletop and home decor products." Lifetime Brands markets their products to major Housewares retailers in the United States. Their continued growth significantly impacts their current design innovation structure, process, culture, integration, quality, brand development and how the value of design is defined and measured.

In their quest for pursuing world class design, the Lifetime Brands Product Development & Design Department asked the Design Academy to assess their operations to better define the current structure and make key recommendations that could be strategically prioritized into an actionable plan.

POLYONE

PolyOne is a global leader offering a comprehensive array of specialized polymer materials, tailored services and end-to-end solutions.

PolyOne strongly believes that collaboration between design, materials and manufacturing functions is essential to create breakthrough products that succeed in the marketplace.

The Design Academy has been asked by PolyOne to help them connect to industrial designers through "real world application" with the goals of educating designers on their material use and application potential, increasing the bottom line and providing an innovative marketing and PR approach.

The Design Academy is assisting PolyOne in organizing and participating in a sponsored project with a design school recommended by The Design Academy, from the preparation to the final review, collaborating with the school and an injection molder which brings the knowledge of plastics molding and tooling along with their constraints and rapid prototyping techniques that can help get designers closer to a functional prototype, and teach them to better work with their client's manufacturing partner.

CVS Pharmacy

The Pharmacy of the Future
When we met CVS, it was an operationally driven company looking to improve innovation processes and create a vision for the pharmacy of the future by exploring the unmet needs of their customers, pharmacists and other stakeholders.

Working under the umbrella of Launch Institute, three leading design innovation studios (Experientia (Europe) The Design Academy (USA West coast) Launch Institute (USA East coast) worked together to provide diverse perspectives and research methodologies to better understand their customers' pharmacy experience and inform their strategic vision. An innovation studio was developed for the client where innovation workshops were held to teach the process and distill the research. Ethnographic observations, interviews, secondary research "Learning Journey's" and The Design Academy's Salon were some of the methodologies used to provide best practice and rich insights from a global perspective on customers, pharmacists, healthcare environments, communities, and alternative health experiences.

Research and customer touch points encompassed
• Trends • Form & space • Workflows • Interaction • Customer Archetype Visualization • Ethnographic Research • Product

Results
• Innovation process knowledge building and experience
• Sustainable process development from research to concepts to opportunities and filtering
• Brand product and service experience concepts and opportunities

IMS Integrated Medical Systems
Design Brand Assessment – Strengthening the Brand through the integration of Design into the Strategy Vision of the Company

IMS is an innovative medical equipment developer recognized as a 'Product Leader' in the Military market who develops integrated product systems for the medical field that clearly demonstrate viable improvements in managing the care of patients and greater efficiencies for the medical practitioners and medical institutions worldwide.

Challenge
The Design Academy, Inc. was contracted to assist and advise on a product development and branding strategy for their commercialization initiative. This first Phase was an Assessment to better understand the company background, objectives, product and positioning and provide recommendations of how to move forward.

The Assessment and recommendations focused on how the Company could reduce Disruptive Technology and Market risk through Design Management and User Experience processes, Improved Product Design, and Cohesive Branding Strategies that help enforce a Product Leadership position in the commercial market.

Methodology
The assessment team's focus was on assessing the Company's product in terms of a commercial application. Including function, service, aesthetics, materials, device attachments, monitor, software, design language, development process and brand identity of product and communications. While its primary focus was on a Product and Brand analysis, it is within a corporate context, taking into consideration company culture and organization.

The assessment employed a discovery practice in the collection and analysis of evidence. Special attention was given to the evaluation of physical evidence in the form of product, communications materials and other media through which the product and brand is experienced. Analysis was based on interviewing key staff, clients, advisory board members, and contractors, client/expert workshop with an analysis of 'discovery' materials provided. The interview phase was critical and involved a series of interviews, but also observations centered around key areas of culture, organization, process, product and people as it relates to design and branding.

In conjunction with the Assessment, The Design Academy also worked on product development, which added additional insights to the Assessment process.

Key Output
A knowledge-base platform and recommendations on which to build a product and brand commercialization development plan to leverage design and key core competencies at the Company. The Company uses the Assessment as a strategic plan framework.

The longer term goal is to develop an integrated corporate commercialization strategy and plan with a 'design innovation mind' that increases company brand value and minimizes risk while maintaining leadership in the military market, with a focus on potentially profitable innovation of applying technology to commercial market.

EASTMAN
From Material to Application – Visualization
The Design Academy developed small appliance concepts that showcased the benefits of Eastman's innovative new Tritan™ material. Concepts were exhibited at the International Housewares Show in Chicago.
Chuck is an integral partner with Eastman's Innovation Lab, especially connecting Eastman with the automotive community in the US and South America.

>> Watch the video "Eastman: Connecting cars and consumers"
>> Read the article "Eastman's appliance Concepts" seen in Appliance Design magazine
>> Visit the Eastman Innovation Lab Website and read about The Design Academy's role

Connecting Suppliers Through Design
Reaching out to Brazilian businesses and universities to showcase new materials, The Design Academy presented innovative concepts on packaging design from a multidiscipline perspective for EmbalagemMarca magazine and Eastman. The roundtable discussions resulted in making connections of material to application through design.

MAGNA

The Design Academy worked with Magna International on a lifestyle concept vehicle. "The whole purpose was to create a brand new niche for young and not-so-young people," according to Mr. Gingl, Magna's executive vice-chairman. The vehicle concept illustrates Magna's drive for innovation

Integral to the project was Lifestyle Segmentation and trailers designed by lifestyle activity. Renegade Urban was one of the segments.

BIO CYBERNETICS

On the quest to support health and wellness, The Design Academy developed Cybertech therapeutic concepts, which create biomechanics for support, patient comfort and compliance.

BETTER BY DESIGN

Better by Design team was established to help NZ businesses become more design capable by establishing programs that assist Companies in increasing their exports and profits through the better use of design in their products and services.

The program was publicly kicked off in March 2005 at the Better by Design conference in Auckland for which Chuck Pelly was a speaker.

The Design Academy developed a "Masterclass"; educational workshops consisting of design leaders from NZ's top export companies aimed to increase their intellectual capital, design knowledge, leverage its' value and enhance peer to peer interaction.

Design management topics included:
• Leveraging the Value of Design through Design Metrics
• Expanding beyond the corporate walls
• Attracting, Motivating and Retaining Talent

BMW Group DesignworksUSA

Chuck Pelly founded Designworks/USA in 1976 and eventually sold it to BMW.
Read more: http://www.designworksusa.com/vision/NotesLetters/chuck/index.html

CATTIVA Catamaran

CATTIVA, the 43 foot luxury catamaran, designed by Pelly and engineered by well-known Architects, Morelli & Melvin is currently berthed in New Zealand after travels to Tonga, Fiji, New Caledonia, Vanuatu and NZ waters. Thanks to the many sponsors including Aeristo leather and Taylor Systems. Contact Chuck Pelly if interested in purchase or fractional ownership. Visit cattivacatamarans.com

WHIRLPOOL

Challenge
In ideal situations, the correct balance can be found between innovation and reduction where a new product can maintain or increase profits and market share, and build on the legacy of an established brand.

Reading the forces that drive product development, what Cagan and Vogel from CMU call "the SET factors of Social, Economic and Technological change", is a challenge particularly in large companies. The number of decisions that must be made when developing a new product is staggering. The larger the company, the more departments and individuals there are and the greater the number of decisions. When companies plan for new product development they can consciously or unconsciously tilt the balance.

Our goal was to evaluate the process at Whirlpool and develop a model of Whirlpool's decision-making process.

A secondary goal was to increase the communication and relationship between design and engineering.

Methodology
The model of product development was established by observing an existing program at Whirlpool, best practice benchmarking and leveraging our work with other companies where we developed similar models.

We looked for issues of how customer trends are factored in planning, how different departments were represented at each stage of the process and how the brand legacy is considered.