Corporate Industrial Design: L.B. Bohle GmbH

We endeavour to offer our customers a high-quality product in every respect. In addition to the quality of the system construction and the automation, we also consider the design of the product. For us, the design should emphasise the quality claim and make the quality of the system visible. It has been proven that a good design already embodies a certain level of quality among users. We also want to increase user acceptance with an attractive design. When switching to a new type of machine, there can occasionally be reservations because you have to part with familiar products. A modern and appealing design can dampen such reservations and arouse curiosity for new products. Last but not least, a modern and eye-catching design should make a product stand out from a group of similar machines and attract the attention of our customers, so that they are interested in our machine and its inner values, so that we can convince them overall.

One of the things we expected from a new design generation was a completely different appearance to the pure stainless steel that is common in our market environment. With the help of the professionals, we were completely successful in achieving this and we received a lot of feedback from our customers. It is clear that, given the large number of different products, not all machines will benefit from the new design in the first year, but it will take some time for the new design to take effect across the entire product range. We are therefore curious to see how our customers will react when the next machines are released and whether they even expect such design leaps to be possible on the other machines.
Interestingly, another effect was that our team members who were involved in the realisation of the new development developed a tremendous sense of joy at putting something “new” on its feet.

The collaboration with “our” design team was very pleasant and efficient. We were well informed at the beginning with a workshop about design and were guided through a correct self-assessment. The question of which design would suit us authentically and be accepted by our customers was also asked correctly. It was also important that the designers fought for the implementation of the most important design features, as there was sometimes resistance from the development departments for understandable reasons. The project was also pleasantly effective for us, as we were able to communicate and exchange data on an ad hoc basis using team rooms set up for this purpose. This meant that some details could be worked on in the sprint and urgent questions in the team could be answered quickly. The designers not only expressed their interest in the implementation by visiting the trade fair during the presentation, but are also interested in the implementation of the other products in the long term. We would choose this approach with the CAE team again and can recommend it without exception.