SUMMARY OF THE ADJUDICATION

The category Working Use Products Unit 3 includes industrial machines and facilities that have beneficial effects on the users' work, and as such, it is the Unit for production resources that support the highly-sophisticated manufacturing that Japan is so proud of. This year, 96 companies sent 171 entries, of which 103 were selected for the Good Design Award, yielding a high success rate of 60.2%.
This demonstrates that fortunately, the quality of design has improved overall, but on the other hand, the success rate is also due to the many conventional designs that gave us no particular reason to assign them failing marks. Whether or not this is another sign of the poor health of the industrial sector, the dismissive attitude that this level of design is just fine for production resources may be setting us up for a situation in which we will be unable to create the kind of exciting, adventurous designs that will open the way to a new era.

EVALUATION OF THE DESIGNS

Given the characteristics of the products in this Unit, we emphasized two aspects during our Adjudications. Since the design and development of production materials play an especially large role in determining the function and performance of a product, our first concern was to look carefully at questions such as whether the designers had dealt with solving these issues or whether the designers had shown sufficient concern for the use environment. The second aspect was determining the level at which the design should be evaluated, based on the degree of maturity of the product category and the characteristics and sizes of the companies providing the entries. We also judged the development of the product over time, looking at such things as efforts at continuous improvement and the degree of evolution that had occurred.
I would like to use the Gold Prize-winning product, the three-directional shock and acceleration recorder developed by a small company, Art Heaven 9, as an example of the directions and forward-looking trends in design this year.
This is set on precision instruments that are sensitive to shock at the distribution stage or during installation, and it uses a miniature acceleration sensor to detect and record vibration that the instrument is subjected to from three directions. We particularly liked this device because even though it is an accessory installed where no one can see it, it has an attractive form that is beautifully and painstaking finished down to the smallest detail. We also liked the way that light emitting diodes (LEDs) were placed in three directions, to dim when three-dimensional shock acceleration was applied, which showed that the designers had thought of the mental image of the LED devices as sentries and had therefore used their placement to symbolize this.
The design of this product give it the power to act as a proxy for the quality control manager who wants the product shipped so that it is delivered to the customer in perfect condition. This reminds us that even in such logic-oriented fields as the design of production resources, there is a need for design that bridges the ideas of the manufacturer and the user.

Prize of Small and Medium Enterprises was awarded to the pulse pump developed by Takumina. This series already has a history in this competition, having been selected for the G-Mark in 1999, but it has been subjected to continuous improvements in order to bring it closer to the ideal designs proposed in sketches at that time, and this process is now complete. It is a simple, unassuming design, but it has been the object of diligent and painstaking work by engineers and designers, under the guidance of managers who understand design. High marks were given to the design development position of this small business whose activities are aimed at continuous evolution of their products.

Although they were not selected for any special prizes, Hitachi Construction Machinery's hydraulic excavator and Kubota's combine harvester were worthy of particular mention. In both cases, the design and engineering departments worked together closely, and we liked their superior designs, which thoroughly blended attractiveness and improved functions in these products.
Whether we liked its design or not, an entry that exemplified the new field of production resources design was the Tea Machine, entered by Design Stream, Ltd. It is a machine that supplies high-quality loose-leaf tea at tea retailers' shops. It is full of features that allow people to enjoy the process of brewing tea. One could almost call this area "entertainment design." Design that provides fun and excitement is needed to set the scene for workplaces that support more effective operations in the service industries and other areas. If the category of products having the same objectives expands further, we may need to combine it with commercial game machines and similar devices to create a new product category for the G-Mark.

ISSUES FOR THE FUTURE

On the other hand, we also saw products whose features could be interpreted to mean that design was considered part of marketing, or that the designers had not spent enough time discussing things with the engineers and had their eyes on competing products as they hastily added coloring and styling. For example, a medium-sized company that features finely crafted products with unique plans entered a highly desirable riding mower with four-wheel drive and four-wheel steering, and it was selected for the G-Mark, partly in the interests of encouraging such efforts. However, even if giving the product a name that is a pun on a celebrity's name is nothing more than a clever marketing device, its layout forces the rider to assume a cramped position, and its markings, which resemble those of a racing car, make it look like the go-carts at an amusement park. As such, it does not look like a mower that an adult would use with pride. Next time, we hope to see that the company has worked on the more substantive dimensions of design.

A small tractor entered by a large corporation offers a high level of design and functionality. Even so, if the vital steering wheel components—likely to be used by hobby farmers, women, and the elderly—had shown evidence of the same advanced efforts at interface design seen in the motorcycles and passenger cars of that same company, this product would have added a new dimension of enjoyment to farm work. In the future, we would like to see new proposals from this otherwise leading company in design.

In addition, the electric power generators, measuring devices, and hand tools that commonly win the G-Mark do not have particularly bad designs, but they all more or less resemble one another, and there is not much to distinguish them. Regrettably, there were very few forward-looking products that took the lead in finding and solving issues in their design area. Even though it was part of this group, Regulated DC Power Supply from Kikusui Electronics Corp. followed orthodox lines, but it received high marks for creating a fresh corporate image with a systematic composition and pleasing design. If Japanese industries are regain their vitality in the 21st century, design cannot be treated lightly as a mere narrow bridge linking marketing and engineering. Instead, I would like designers to show us that they have the ambition and confidence to bring attractive, daring plans to fruition. The concerted efforts of designers themselves will be essential for making this happen, but I would like managers as well to take an active role in throwing challenging problems at designers and design departments and letting them show what they can do.


Satoru Baba
Chief Jury of Unit 3
President, Crew Inc.