RKS Shares Top Tips for Innovation and Concept Design Tools

By lindseychristensen | Published: August 23, 2011

 

The term “innovation” is thrown around a lot when we talk about product design– it’s been a buzz word for some time now. But how do we know it when we see it? Can we measure it? And perhaps more importantly, how do you actually facilitate innovation within your organization?

I’ve learned that behind an innovative product tends to be an effective concept design phase. But can we pinpoint real-life examples to how and why?  To tackle this subject I turned to an expert.  Lance Hussey is VP and Creative Director at RKS Design, one of the top ten Industrial Design firms in North America.  Lance and his team claim to have a “proven, repeatable system for strategy-fueled inspiration” (and have the charts and success stories to back it up!).

Want to know their secret sauce?

Join the live webinar Top Tips for Selecting a Concept Design Tool: How to Facilitate Award-Winning Innovation Like a Best-In-Class Company.

On Thursday, August 25th at 2pm EST.

If anyone knows how to encourage and execute this mystifying notion of “innovative product design,” it’s Lance.  As partner at RKS, he oversees the design of virtually every project that comes in the door. He holds numerous patents and has received multiple design awards including: IDEA(12), Good Design(24), Spark(19), and CES Innovations(9), among many others.

Hope to see you there too! This PTC-sponsored TechBrief’s webinar includes the presentation followed by a Q&A session featuring both Lance and our own concept design guru Paul Hamilton. [Ed- We’ve mentioned Creo customer and innovation-masters RKS in this blog a few times- their products are too cool not to. Check out their customizable guitar and futuristic water bottles.]

Media Advisory: PTC Delivers Creo™ Elements/Direct™ 18.0

NEEDHAM, MA. - July 18, 2011 - PTC (Nasdaq: PMTC), the Product Development Company®, today announced the availability of Creo^TM Elements/Direct^TM 18.0 - the latest release of its market leading direct modeling solution and a member of the Creo family of design software. 

Creo Elements/Direct is a complete design environment that offers the world's #1 direct 3D CAD modeler, along with 2D CAD, CAE and integrated product data management (PDM). Creo Elements/Direct provides speed, flexibility, and responsiveness-to-change for customers facing short design cycles, one-off product designs, or companies demanding a lightweight design process.

What's New in Creo Elements/Direct 18.0:

• More Intuitive Design Experience - improves ease of use and reduces the learning curve for those new to direct modeling through the new ribbon-based UI that is consistent across the Creo product family of applications.
• Optimized Design Workflows - improves the way designers work through new context-sensitive command controls in drafting and extended 3D modification commands in modeling.
• More Productive Design Data Management - broadens the reach of product data management and PLM support by enabling improved access and data sharing with a new Web Client and Web Services in Model Manager, and deeper process integration with Windchill.
• More Powerful Design Solution - broadens the designer's reach through interoperability with Creo 1.0. Engineers can take their Creo Elements/Direct designs and analyze and share them with Creo Simulation and Creo View MCAD, respectively.

Creo Elements/Direct 18.0 additionally enables users to take advantage of new Creo 1.0 applications for extended design needs such as simulation and visualization. This is part of PTC's strategy to give engineers and designers the greatest flexibility in choosing product design tools that fit their role in the product development process. Existing Creo Elements/Direct customers will continue to yield benefits to their business through updated and improved capabilities in Creo Elements/Direct 18.0.

Supporting Quotes:
"STIWA Holding GmbH uses Creo Elements/Direct because it gives us the flexibility to rapidly accommodate changes that happen late in the design cycle," said Thomas Mayer, responsible for mechanical CAD at STIWA Holding GmbH.  "The new user interface in Creo Elements/Direct 18.0, improvements to key features in direct modeling, and the interoperability with the Creo apps will help drive productivity across our design team resulting in shorter design cycles and faster time to market."

 "Creo Elements/Direct 18.0 demonstrates PTC's commitment to support our customers' freedom to choose the design approach that best fits their needs," said Justin Teague, DVP & General Manager, Design and Visualization Products Business Unit, PTC. "It delivers productivity enhancements that specifically address the needs of direct modeling users - lightweight, flexible, fast and connected through interoperability with the new Creo apps.  Ultimately, Creo Elements/Direct enables customers to achieve competitive advantage by optimizing their design cycles and bringing innovative products to market quickly."

Additional Resources:

• Creo Elements/Direct 18.0 Resource Center
• Creo Elements/Direct (datasheet)
• Introduction to Creo Elements/Direct 18.0 (video)
• Top 10 New Features in Creo Elements/Direct 18.0 (video)
• Product images