PARTNER Ed Fulton brought two decades experience to the start up company that was to become Priio. Prior to 1999 he traveled the world creating exotic test equipment used in consumer, automotive and medical production facilities, with most of this equipment being custom one-up creations used on high-speed production lines. He not only learned a great deal about hardware development, but learned that he also disliked traveling the world. He now happily stays put in Central Indiana, providing pre-production support and design transfer wisdom.

What you should know about him: He owns a few comic books…okay, a few thousand. (He is currently chasing pre-1950 Walt Disney Comics and Stories). He has staunchly refused to donate his collection to the Smithsonian, insisting that he is saving his magnum opus for the Louvre.

Role model: Walt Disney – whom he quotes: “Around here…we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we’re curious…and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”

Trouble spots: He tends to take quirky photographs.

Priio was joined by Indesign and TWeatherford to provide a short overview of prototyping for small medical device development at the May 18, 2012 INpact meeting, held at Bingham Greenebaum Doll LLP in downtown Indianapolis.

Prototyping is a way to brainstorm for possible solutions, research the technology available and plan the construction for any product development project. The presentation covered the basics of the various proto “types” and offered a hands-on examination of the various samples.  (For more information about INpact, a network of product development resources and service providers, please go to www.inpact.org.)

From the presentation:

FIVE PROTO “TYPES”

Proof of Concept • Creates a mock-up from already existing components. • Proves technical feasibility. • Provides a forecast for how much time and money is needed to completely design.

Form Model • This is a form study of the physical shape. • Fashioned physically out of  foam, clay, resin, etc. • Establishes aesthetics for end user. • Used in presentations to gather funding. • Because form is very subjective, it can often require a large number of tweaks to get it right.

Functional Model • This is a physical item that actually works as intended. • Often aesthetics may be set aside to get to functionality sooner. • Provides usage data.

Interactive Functional Model • A whole new level of prototyping (college, as opposed to elementary school) • Additional IP involved (e.g. electronics and software) creates a longer lead time and higher cost to develop. • A potential stage of client discomfort because other proto-types are not as work intensive. • For many non-FDA devices, this is the final stage before production.

Clinical Use Model • This is the highest level of prototyping, requiring much time and detailed documentation. • With properly submitted paperwork, the FDA says, “you can now touch an animal (maybe a human) with it, for collecting use and performance data.” • This is an actual first level of production in a limited number.

For more information about prototypes and the process of small medical device product development, please contact Priio at 317/471-1577

After Priio peeps finished work on a certain little project, if someone had asked, “What are you going to do now?” — they could’ve answered the classic, “I’m going to Disney World!”

The product development athletes at Priio indeed had an all-star in the tire pressure monitor that was developed for dump trucks – but went first to Disney’s monorails in Orlando.

“The original target market was dump trucks because five percent low tire pressure is potentially thousands of dollars a month lost in fuel,” says Priio president Larry O’Cull. “It’s a big, big deal.”

The company developing the monitor, however, found an additional market with the myriad tires of Disney’s monorail system.

“These monorails have like 60 tires each and they’re all placed underneath where they’re out of sight and difficult to access,” says O’Cull. “So when you have a low tire on one of these, you’ve got a maintenance guy with an attitude!”

Trying to locate which tire is low in such a complex setting is made easier by having these “smart” pressure monitors. Each one has a unique ID and a companion receiver with a display. And each one can be named something like ‘third car, left rear’ – in which case the maintenance staff would know exactly where to look.

“We designed these using a MEMS sensor,” says O’Cull. “There’s also a long life battery on board. You can screw this in and it will last three years. The maintenance staff is much happier.”

Grinning, O’Cull adds that if he’d known the just how successful the little gadget would prove in this particular setting, he might’ve upped the price – just a bit: “I think life time tickets to Disney World for the staff might have been a reasonable bonus!”

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A cool, fast car, maybe?

Very likely, anything bearing the term “hot rod” is a cool, fast car – but it’s also likely a prototype.

If you’ve ever seen a genuine hot rod, you’ll note it generally looks nothing like the cars you see rolling along highways and byways everyday. That’s because it’s a functional model – something cobbled together to prove a point of feasibility (usually linear speed).

It’s still impressive – but its purpose is not the same as a finished Lamborghini. The latter is the result of hundreds of iterations and design procedures developed to produce a visually perfect cruising machine. The hot rod, on the other hand, can be the offspring of junkyard parts and a crack engine. But then – they’re not designed with the same purpose in mind.

So it is with the certain prototypes. When an item concept needs to prove a point – say, a particular functionality or mobility – the result may look more like something out of a Tim Burton movie than a shelf-ready retail model, but that’s because the goal is not looks but rather proving its chops.

“It may actually be that something which will end up inside the human body will first be prototyped out with PVC pipe and some duct tape,” says Priio president Larry O’Cull (only half joking). “In the earliest stages of product development, you often need to prove the concept’s viability before you even begin to think of how it’s going to look. Once you do that, you actually have one of the hardest parts of your journey done.”

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To see the related article, please go to: Does it work?

Inflating then popping a balloon is this year’s task of the annual engineering competition sponsored by Theta Tau fraternity at Purdue University.

Granted, to inflate a balloon and pop it doesn’t sound like a particularly challenging task – unless you’re doing it with a large machine which uses at least 20 mechanical steps that show good engineering and great entertainment value.

The contest is based on the outrageous contraptions of Rube Goldberg, Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist of the early 20^th century. The idea is to build a machine that takes the most convoluted and creative route to successfully accomplish a simple task.

The event will commence at 9:30 a.m. It is family-friendly, free-of-charge and open to the public.

For more information, please click on www.rubemachine.com.

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“Digi-Key is building a design services network across the country, and they didn’t have anyone in this state,” says Priio president Larry O’Cull. “They investigated by interviewing manufacturing representatives, local vendors and clients – and our name came up very favorably.”

Digi-Key lists a Design Services Provider network as part of a full-orbed service orientation. They provide links and information to their customer base for recommended fee-based service providers to improve project efficiency and hasten time-to-market: http://www.digikey.com/design-services-providers/design-firm/Priio.

Scott Raeker, a Digi-Key spokesperson, wrote in an email confirming Priio’s certification that he enjoyed speaking to the client references. “I feel Priio is an excellent design firm and I look forward to working with [the] team,” he says.

OFFICE MANAGER

What you should know about her: When she and her husband are not taking videos of their cute little daughter, she is plotting ways to support her jewelry habit.

Role model: Rosa Parks for being outspoken about her beliefs.

Trouble spot: Cannot be seen in public without a tan.