Great article:
Driven by design: N. Texas firms turn gadget ideas into reality
North Texas niche firms turn gadget ideas into reality
08:53 AM CST on Thursday, December 8, 2005
By VICTOR GODINEZ / The Dallas Morning News
Most consumer electronics items may be stamped "Made in China," but
a lot of them could just as easily proclaim "Designed in Dallas."
MELANIE BURFORD/DMN
Industrial designers brainstorm over iPod accessory ideas at
Ignition, a technology design company in Plano. From DVD movie
projectors to high-definition televisions to pet collars with GPS
tracking chips built in to digital education tools, some of the
hottest technology products on the market are being designed and
prototyped in the Dallas area by specialized firms.
Although it doesn't approach the scale of the design hubs on the
East and West coa! sts, the local design industry is a vibrant niche
with firms ! focused on just about every aspect of crafting and
creating new technology products.
Plano-based Ignition Inc. does industrial design, conjuring up the
look and feel of a device.
Paragon Innovations Inc. of Plano does electronic design, assembling
the technological guts of a product and making sure it does what
it's supposed to do.
And Richardson-based Texas Prototypes Inc. does what the company
calls design for manufacturability, taking a finished prototype and
determining the most efficient way to mass-produce it.
Michael Wilkinson, chief executive officer at Paragon Innovations,
said that when he launched Paragon in 1990, specialized design firms
were rare.
Paragon's most recent projects include a GPS-enabled dog collar that
will be the plot hook for a Harrison Ford movie next year, and a
video phone that will be sold through Vonage, the voice-over-
Internet provider.
"When I started the business 15 years ago and said 'outsourc! ing,'
people said 'Huh?' " Mr. Wilkinson said. "It was very difficult to
get someone to even accept the concept."
Since then, of course, outsourcing, particularly overseas, has
become a corporate buzzword, but the local design leaders say they
aren't worried that their talents will be farmed out to lower-cost
designers in India or China.
Electronic Design magazine, a trade journal for the industry, found
in a survey of its readers earlier this year that 52 percent of
companies are outsourcing some of their design work.
And 67 percent of that work is being outsourced to U.S. firms such
as Paragon.
"That took us by surprise, in that most of the outsourcing is really
work from one U.S. company to another in terms of electronic
design," said Mark David, editor in chief at Electronic Design.
"There is a trend toward some of the big manufacturers in Taiwan and
South Korea, some of the contract manufacturers starting to off! er
design services as well," he said. "There is some design m! oving of
fshore, but percentage-wise, there's enough growth in the U.S. that
we're actually gaining in share."
That trend in electronic design is true as well for
manufacturability design, said Michael Shores, chief executive
officer at Texas Prototypes.
"We feel that a lot of the creativity and innovation is still going
to take place in the U.S.," Mr. Shores said.
Texas Prototypes, among other projects, handled the
manufacturability design for the same video phone that Paragon
created, and is in the midst of going public through a reverse
merger
Scarce details
Data on the size of these industries, particularly locally, is
scarce. There are no trade associations for the electronic design or
design for manufacturability industries, for example.
According to the Industrial Designers Society of America, there are
107 industrial design firms in Texas, including 31 in the Dallas-
Fort Worth area.!
Nationwide, the group claims more than 3,300 member companies.
Although the design firms in the Dallas area seem to be thriving,
maintaining that performance is a constant challenge.
Douglas Laube, president and chief executive of Ignition, said
recruiting talent to his 50-person firm isn't easy.
"It's been hell," he said, laughing. "It's been a real challenge,
and we're not the only ones having that challenge."
So Ignition has opened satellite offices on the coasts, and this
year it opened offices in Hong Kong and Taiwan.
"You have to change your business model a little bit," he said.
Part of the problem is convincing top-notch design professionals
that the region is a place where they can do cutting-edge work.
But strolling through the facilities of Ignition, Paragon and Texas
Prototypes, it's evident that these firms are doing high-end jobs.
Signs of success
!
At Ignition, for example, the main lobby is ! a testam ent to the
company's successes.
There's Texas Instruments Inc.'s first high-definition DLP
television, which Ignition designed for TI to unveil at the Consumer
Electronics Show in 1999.
There's a replica of the Twist & Shout educational gadget from
LeapFrog Enterprises Inc.
Deeper inside the building, expansive windows, lofty ceilings and
cubicle whiteboards festooned with multicolored doodles and
scribbles suggest the restless, creative spirit the company
cultivates.
Continue through the building, and the modern carpeting, and product
displays give way to a gritty workshop where prototypes are drilled,
carved and sliced.
If Ignition is a wonderland for industrial designers, Paragon is a
toy shop for tinkerers.
While Paragon struggled through the downturn in 2000 and 2001,
business started to ramp up again at the end of 2003, Mr. Wilkinson
said.
Since then, growth has been steady and the company is hiring.
Much of that new business is coming from clients who realize that
making a gadget is not what they do best.
"If you look at a medical company making some kind of device, their
core competency is the treatment," Mr. Wilkinson said, "not
communicating wirelessly to the hospital pharmacy system and the
administration offices with a patient ID."
E-mail vgodinez@dallasnews.com
Designed in Dallas
The local design industry covers just about every aspect of creating
new technology products.
IGNITION INC.
Specialty: Industrial design
Products worked on: Texas Instruments DLP televisions, Cinego D-1000
DVD projector
Headquarters: Plano
Employees: About 50 worldwide, 34 in Plano
Re! venue: close to $10 million
PARAGON ! INNOVATI ONS INC.
Specialty: Electronic design
Products worked on: 3M DLP Digital Video Wall Display,
GlobalPetFinder pet collar with GPS tracking
Headquarters: Plano
Employees: 34
Revenue: $5 million to $10 million
TEXAS PROTOTYPES INC.
Specialty: Design for manufacturability
Products worked on: VisiFone video phone from Irving-based Viseon
Inc.
Headquarters: Richardson
Employees: 37
Revenue: $2.6 million in the first six months of 2005 |
