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Despite the fact that product cycles are shorter than they used to be?
Yes. Product development times are shorter these days. But it's something which all the departments have to cope with - and the Design Department is no exception. It's something we've grown used to and we don't have any problem with it.
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Do you also work with external designers?
To a certain degree, yes. We work with external design practices when our internal capacity is stretched. We can't just expand and contract the design department in accordance with the ups and downs of our work volume during the year. We might have a large number of projects on the go for a while and then things get quieter again.
Design work done by external practices can be rather a difficult issue. Outsiders don't have the same instinctive feel for where our design is going and they can sometimes have difficulty meeting the requirements which we have to set for our design concepts. It always takes a while for both sides to adjust to each other, but everything goes smoothly afterwards.
I should mention that we have one external designer who used to be on the staff at Braun - so that's a big help. He has a real talent for design and comes up with excellent ideas. Sometimes it's important to have input from outside the company. As we're all so familiar with the way we do things at Braun, it makes it more difficult to come up with fundamentally new approaches. We need a certain constructive distance in order to allow ourselves to see things in a new way and introduce really innovative ideas.
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One of the more recent products which strikes me as particularly inspired is the ear thermometer. Speaking as a journalist, I can
The future is always the big question - for journalists and for us, too. I think it's something that interests everyone. And you're right to ask about it, because we're not just here to turn design concepts into products, but also to come up with answers to the question of how design will develop in the future. It's something I'm often asked about. We have a responsibility to "know" what will be the "right" design two years down the line - that's how long our lead times are - and for a period of three to five years afterwards. The world is so dynamic now, it's certainly become more difficult. There's no doubt that it was easier to come up with projections in the past. That is one of the reasons why we attach so much importance to our Advanced Design activities which allow us to explore our own future-oriented projects - which are not subject to the normal constraints - while pursuing our regular daily project work at the same time.
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Despite the fact that product cycles are shorter than they used to be?
Yes. Product development times are shorter these days. But it's something which all the departments have to cope with - and the Design Department is no exception. It's something we've grown used to and we don't have any problem with it.
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