To look at problems and their current solutions from new perspectives; this is in the centre of a workshop series organized by the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering – Department of Industrial Design in cooperation with Honeywell. This year's most promising students will be given the opportunity to develop the most successful idea in the company’s lab, up to the prototype stage.

“When a worker hangs in the air for a long time, the safety straps will become uncomfortable. That's why we thought we wanted to create some support to help them sit,” says Helena Pernicová, industrial design student, while describing the idea of her team. Like other student teams, during a three-day Product Design workshop, they´re trying to solve the challenges people working at heights are facing. Each team has a task from a different sector, and Helena´s team is solving the case of a wind turbine technician.

Tomáš Szaszi from Honeywell's Brno branch listens to their ideas. A moment later he explains why the company is organizing a student workshop: “We want to reduce the gap between academia and industry, which we still feel a bit. Moreover, it is a huge supply of energy and out-of-the-box thinking, new perspectives for problem-solving. The more open-minded people you have, the more likely you are to solve your customer's problem. We saw the work of students from previous years and it was of good quality. That's why we are coming back here,” says Szaszi, who acts as Honeywell Strategy Leader for EMEA.

The studio-lecture, but a bit different

The workshop is a part of studio lecture for students of industrial design at the FME. In the autumn it started with a three-day workshop on Design thinking, now the same students continue with the Product Design workshop. During three days of intensive work, they have the opportunity to work on a design concept while receiving feedback from designer Tanguy Prevot from Honeywell. He will provide students with additional feedback for another month after the end of the workshop before the students present their ideas in the final presentation.

“Design thinking is all about who needs what, which problem we are going to solve and what outcome do we want. It´s essential to understand first what we want to achieve before we start designing. In this case, we do not only want to ensure the safety of the worker but also help him to be a better worker. These people all have a physically demanding job up there, but each job is difficult in a different way. Students have to identify in what way the job is difficult and how they can help the person to be more productive, less tired and safer. Until now, fall protection has been all about making sure he or she doesn't die if they fall, but we want devices that help them be, for example, better electricians," explains Prevot about the solutions to problems of the near future.

“Our wind turbine technician has two very different positions – either climbing a ladder up or abseiling down, or working in a suspended position. So we have to combine solutions for both very dynamic and very static work," says student Dominika Csadiová. “It's a completely different perspective on problem-solving. In design thinking, everything is in context, it cooperates with marketing and customers… For me it is very enriching," adds Helena Pernicová.

Innovations growing from vision

“Industrial design is a very practical field, so I can't say we lack the practice. However, I believe it is useful to give students the opportunity to have insight into how a big international corporation works. It is an interesting experience for me as well because I was used to solving smaller, closed design tasks,” says David Škaroupka from the Institute of Machine and Industrial Design, who organizes workshops with the company. “I was surprised by how big innovative companies like Honeywell are working with concepts that might not be immediately realistic or monetizable. Nevertheless, they consider it valuable because it is the basis for future innovations,” concludes Škaroupka.

This year, Honeywell not only wants to select the most successful concept of the workshop. They also want to enable the most promising students to design the prototype of that idea during the summer holiday in the external laboratory of the company, which Honeywell has founded in the JIC FabLab.