DESIGN

What makes Ocean Footprint stand out from many other companies that provide design, we have our own in-house procurement and manufacture, therefore we can offer a full design service as part of the package. Not only with our in house 3D Scanning capabilities can we accurately capture data such as deck profiles and meeting points for our products to de-risk the manufacturing process, we can oversee the entire manufacturing process to reduce risks and reduce errors

HOW CAN WE DE-RISK THE DESIGN PROCESS?

Through our partnerships with many companies both local and global, we are able to communicate digitally very quickly to extremely low tolerance levels. Taking advantage of having work done in areas where we can reduce the number of times a product is handled and therefore keep our costs and liabilities low

Design Plan

The first step of the design process is critical for gathering information, requirements, and other data you need in order to make informed decisions later

Depending on the kind of design work you do, the kinds of work you do during the planning stage could vary, however, all designers will do some variation of these:

• Define task, problem, or goal
• Research audience/users
• Gather requirements: research competitors, tech specs, features, etc
• Gather constraints: impose intentional creative limits
• Write, edit, and develop content and text
• Preliminary sketching & brainstorming: explore & evaluate data to ensure you have what you need

Design Mock-Up

Creating a mock-up is the step of the design process most people recognize—it’s the most visual part of the process. The type of work varies with the medium for the design, but always includes:

• In-depth sketching and brainstorming
• Design a final, polished solution using design software
• Revise the solution repeatedly
• Create rough prototypes to evaluate the solution privately

Build

Many designers believe their work is done after they’ve created a mockup. However, designers are also responsible for making sure their designs are implemented and used correctly. Because of that, there are two additional steps in the design process

The next step is to build the design:

• Implement the solution (often with the help of other professionals like programmers, printers, or manufacturers)
• Revise the solution as technical issues arise or new aspects are discovered that you had not addressed

Note that often the design needs revision as it is implemented. While a detailed design process seeks to gather all critical information so the designer doesn’t miss anything, sometimes new details arise during production, and that’s unavoidable simply because the production effort is often a complex process in itself (for example, programming work)

Because of that, designers need to partner with the people implementing their designs and address any new issues that pop up during production. Bridging the gap between design concerns and technical concerns creates a better product, so you should never skip this step

Measure

The final step is to measure how successful the design is after it’s put into use. Again, while good planning allows designers to make informed decisions, no design is flawless and sometimes the environment changes. Because of that, especially in digital design, designers are involved with measuring the design’s performance

• Launch the design and evaluate how well it performs
• Gather analytics, testing data, user interviews, sales data, etc.
• Find any problems with the design, and start a mini design process to address each

3D scanning capabilities

As part of our alliance with Midway Metals we have invested in 3D scanning capabilities for a number of reasons;

1. Inspection – As part of our work we can scan and inspect items to ensure that the products are as per specification. We can inspect a 3D model against an object that has been scanned, this is a very valuable service
2. Design – We have partnered with a naval architect (Whitehouse Yacht Design) and we can scan areas in advance of works, such as deck areas or machinery space. This is very valuable for the marine industry and we have been working with a number of boat manufacturers to offer these services
3. Reverse engineering – We can scan existing items that are not yet modelled, then convert the scan mesh data into a model, in many formats such as SolidWorks, this can then be fed directly to our manufacturers for quoting, or can enable quick and easy design changes and improvements. (It is a policy of Ocean Footprint that we do not copy other peoples work, on rare occasions, we will scan a piece that is no longer commercially available to support refit work, but it goes against the ethos of our business to reproduce other peoples work and other businesses IP)

We have chosen technology from a company called Creaform, as this is one of few technologies that utilize blue laser technology and facilitates us being able to scan bright works such as stainless steel without the need for coatings to be used. We can also change the detail of the scan data live whilst scanning so that we can capture high detail in some areas and lower the mesh data on other flatter surfaces in the same scan. We have opted for the Elite model with an accuracy of 0.25μm.

In-house we have the full capability to scan an item and then turn the mesh into a usable model and output this into a prototype, then take this to full production using one of our trusted partner manufacturers. We have many examples of doing this with various products that are already available for purchase on our very own website (you are on it now)

Due to the sensitive nature of our work we are unable to publish examples of the work we have completed on our website due to honouring our NDA’s

Data Capture

Video of our team scanning a hull of a rib for one of our customers, the system we use is fully portable and can operate in a shed or warehouse and can operate for over an hour on battery, we also have a generator for power for use in remote areas for large scanning jobs

Render

From this scan data, we were able to take the following information away with us.

Results

And then with the help of our partner business Guy Whitehouse Yacht design, we were able to produce a console design and model parts for Stainless Steel parts to be produced by our partner company Midway Metals Marine for delivery on time and fitting perfectly