Invisibly Innovative Design – A Case Study

Innovative design. For over a decade, these have been buzzwords at the forefront of every business person’s mind and they’ve become practically synonymous with high profile companies like Apple, Tesla, and Netflix. In fact, these words often carry with them an aura of mystique, sometimes lending the mistaken impression that innovative design is necessarily something showy, “sexy,” and news-breaking.

The truth of the matter is that innovative design is more often than not, invisible. The reason for this is simple: when a product or service is a pleasure to use (rather than a “pain” or a “problem”), the design is so seamlessly, intuitively integrated with the user experience that the user rarely even notices it.

An instructive case in point for the virtual invisibility of what can nevertheless be industry-dominating innovative design is Lifecycle’s CHEM+NECT Bag.

Lifecycle is a leading life sciences tools and services company and has long been the primary provider of mobile phase (a liquid solvent) that is the most important component in reversed-phase high-performance liquid-chromatography (HPLC), or the process ethanol manufacturers use for ensuring their product meets the percentage of ethanol required by law.

Lifecycle’s contribution to the ethanol industry is so considerable that when a motorist stops at one of the tens of thousands of gas pumps across the country and sees the familiar sticker indicating that the fuel contains up to 15% ethanol, odds are that this percentage was determined using Lifecycle’s mobile phase.

Lifecycle’s industry dominance didn’t come out of nowhere. It came out of design thinking, a kind of thinking that is behind the multiple disruptive innovations that Lifecycle has become known for.

What exactly is design thinking and how has Lifecycle leveraged it to competitive advantage?

Design thinking – “the intentional solution to a problem within a set of constraints” – is a way of thinking with a deep understanding of the relationship between form and function that is imaginatively attuned to future solutions rather than past problems.

Further, as the following quotes from leading design thinkers attest (and as Lifecycle’s own products demonstrate) design thinking is grounded in empathy for the experience of those who will use a potential product or service:

“The main tenet of design thinking is empathy for the people you’re trying to design for. Leadership is exactly the same thing – building empathy for the people that you’re entrusted to help.

– David Kelley, Founder of IDEO

“User-centered design means understanding what your users need, how they think, and how they behave – and incorporating that understanding into every aspect of your process.”

– Jesse James Garrett, User experience designer

“It’s not ‘us versus them’ or even ‘us on behalf of them.’ For a design thinker it has to be ‘us with them.’”

– Tim Brown, CEO and President of IDEO

In practice, what this meant for Lifecycle was standing in the shoes of its customers – actually investigating ethanol manufacturing facilities and testing labs to experience firsthand the pains and problems of current design – thereby gaining a user-centric perspective to deeply inform the design process that would lead to innovative solutions.

Through the relationships formed with those closest to the ethanol testing process that begged innovative design, Lifecycle learned that the dust, debris, and fumes that are part and parcel of ethanol manufacturing facilities presented significant issues for technicians conducting HPLC testing.

The chief problem was the contamination of mobile phase that was occurring in this environment due to the current container design. Because the containers lacked a closed system delivery, it was extremely difficult for technicians to prevent dust, debris, and fumes from consistently entering the mobile phase, resulting in clogs to the column portion of the HPLC. These column clogs compromised the testing process, necessitating that the process be restarted, resulting in the need for costly repeated testing and proving to be a source of ongoing frustration for those conducting it.

Using design thinking, Lifecycle innovated a solution to this problem that allowed it to overcome the design deficiencies of its competition and quickly become the leading supplier of mobile phase.

Specifically, the solution came in the innovative design of Lifecycle’s aptly named CHEM+NECT Bags, bags that provide a closed system delivery with a quick connect to the HPLC.  Almost overnight, word spread throughout the ethanol manufacturing industry that Lifecycle’s CHEM+NECT Bag easily prevented the introduction of contaminants into mobile phase, making other mobile phase containers undesirable and obsolete.

Not content to stop at the solution of this particular problem, Lifecycle dug deeper into opportunities for innovative design by partnering in 2016 with Midland Scientific. Though Lifecycle had the product know-how, Midland Scientific had the relationships with the biofuels industry into which Lifecycle sought to further support. The partnership itself was an example of design thinking, with Lifecycle making Midland its exclusive distributor of mobile phase and a handful of other supplemental products, comprising a win-win solution for Lifecycle, Midland, and the industry at large.

Through Midland’s relationships, Lifecycle was able to identify two specific problems:

1. The mobile phase Lifecycle was selling at this juncture was available only in 5-liter containers. An HPLC can run on a 5-liter volume of mobile phase for about 12 hours, requiring lab technicians to stagger their work shifts and come in on weekends to change out the bag for the testing to continue.
2. The 5-liter version only runs a single HPLC which limits testing efficiency and adds to the number of change outs. Though the industry had attempted to utilize cubitainers to overcome this problem, the solution itself posed problems since the process by which cubitainers are produced (via blow molding) is not sufficiently clean for ethanol testing. Additionally, cubitainers (being rigid, non-compressible structures) generate excessive waste and consume inordinate landfill space, making them environmentally unsustainable.

Once again, Lifecycle applied design thinking to these problems, offering mobile phase in 20-liter CHEM+NECT Bags reinvented to offer all the advantages of a cubitainer with all the advantages of a closed system delivery, compressible, pillow-style, eco-friendly design.

Lifecycle also sourced adaptors that allowed the 20-liter bag to be hooked up to two HPLCs, eliminating the time- and money-wasting inefficiencies of the change-out process. Much to the relief of technicians who no longer needed to come into the lab on weekends just to conduct a change-out: “I’m a big fan of the 20-liter bag,” one technician told Lifecycle. “It’s more cost effective when compared to the 5-liter bag and the 20L also reduces down time of having to switch out solvent bags and waiting for the HPLC to stabilize.”

Lifecycle’s innovative CHEM+NECT Bags – and the design thinking behind them – entails game-changing implications for the biofuel industry and suggests possibilities for other forward-thinking companies across multiple industries. Whether it’s the design of a product used in an ethanol testing lab, the design of a company’s workspace, or the design of an organizational culture, design thinking is where the rubber of creative ideas meets the road of disruptive innovation.

If you’d like to experience for yourself why design thinking matters, contact Lifecycle today and see how they can help you and your facility.