Its a suitcase! Well, I know, but luggage on a design to delivery journeyYour plain old suitcase. The shortest of goods, in kind, but the voyage from inception first by those who make it, to when it reaches you, in your hands, as an explorer, is a wonderfully convoluted journey. Have you ever wondered what it takes to create a luggage? Pencil Strokes To Packing Your Bag — A Journey Of Making A Piece Of Luggage By DESIGN TO DELIVERY — Medium Understanding how its all made gives us an insight about engineering, about logistic, about art. These means of making are indeed indispensable travel companions. Imagining the future of travel is to reimagine the basics. We'll explore everything from conception & design, all the way through staff employment to distribution and delivery! It sounds so painfully simple but the opposite is actually true. Design: Concept and Ideation
So for the record, you'd not have that with the physical materials, and for a long time. Design does not include market research, even when it sometimes overlaps design. CoreCompetency: Explores consumer characteristics, trip behavior and gaps in the marketplace for opportunity pathways. Starts with deciding who your ideal customer (the corporate flying public, the deal-hunting backpacker or the premium-guzzling traveler). From day 1, design should be a part of every target audience.
Once a target market is found digital models are then followed by sketches. This is the space where you iterate and test material after material, size after size, feature after feature, aesthetic after aesthetic. Designers jifestyle all of the elements: excess, durability, portability (wheels and handles) and storage capacity. And this is where it gets interesting: not many people wants elbow-pain of some random type when your suitcase was empty, but I guess if you are getting it, it’s still better than having to walk that suitcase down the road? The other big trend which is searching for sustainability but not only sustainable consumables is sustainable fabrics and production practices.
Which can also mean it has to work, but also has to be pretty! Its not that a suitcase must be an eye candy — a painting — as well as (image of) a symbol and its marketplace as well. Still, aesthetics should not come at the expense of function or durability. This is one of those processes where there is redundancy built in such that the end result is a design that is functional enough to withstand the rigors of travel while also being stylish.
Manufacturing process — From Starting Material to End Product
Production, which follows an approved design, is the next stage. Step 1: procurement of materials — very dependent on suitcase type and price level. High end luggage are made with material like polycarbonate or leather with lower end luggage using lower end plastics or fabrics. Whenever they will source for these materials, they need to consider the quality of these materials, the cost of these materials, and the ethical sourcing of these materials as well.
It can be a complicated business making it available for purchase and usually has to be performed several factories with expert suppliers. The business units that produce independent parts like wheels, handle, zipper, lock, etc. are all laid out separately just to join together yet again to make it as one final piece. Found typically while designing a complex supply chain that requires a lot of management and orchestration to ensure that materials and components reach exactly in time. While mass production is excellent for getting product made and getting out the door very rapidly (and at a very low cost), advanced manufacturing techniques — like final quality injection molds for plastic casings (if any) or precise equipment for luggage stitching — ensure quality and consistency.
and production each level undergoes the most stringent dominance tests for quality control. This also makes sure that every single suitcase is manufactured according to your specifications and will be completely defect-free. A: The company performs visual checks, function tests (for example wheel and zipper strength, durability, etc.) and material tests to make sure that safety, functionality and other requirements are satisfied. It is useful for identifying any defects in real-time and ensuring that corrupted articles do not reach the end consumer.
Phase: QA & Testing = Bringing endurance and reliability into the manifestation
It is only when the suitcase has passed these tests that it is ready for sale. This means to put it through extreme tests, as to replicate the conditions the luggage would have to go through on its trips. Drop tests, impact tests, stress on the wheels, zippers, and handles are all put through its paces, too. Which essentially means to identify the clog or failure points before the buyers experience a shutdown in the product.
In addition to specs, QA tests on things like ergonomics, or ease of use — you know, how easy the suitcase is to pack. Specifically, those would be packability, rollability, and feature functionality. At this stage, the user feeback becomes real, usually in the form of focus groups or beta-release user testing. Ensuring Our Final Output Is Solid but Also Practical and Meets the Needs and Expectations of Your Ideal Consumers.
Based on the results of the Quality Assurance tests, necessary specification or process changes are then made, if and when required. This implies that all universal data we already have can be iterated on for every search space solution/interface and therefore this will be higher order of magnitude (performance than) us consuming some quasi-final product that may or may not be higher quality, reliably at consumer product expectation level. And without having quality focus they cannot achive the brand value and repeat customers.
Distribution & Delivery: Ensuring the Suitcase Lands in the Hands of Customers
The bags are packed and shipped after giving assurance of any kind of quality checks Which translates into super sophisticated supply chain logistics. Suitcases will leave the factory bound for a central distribution hub (probably located near a transport node) allowing for quick shipping to retailers, or delivery to customers for the online sale channels.
Long hauls will be expensive, Driving trucks that far will take a lot of time and expense to justify doing and probably involve local trucking, waterway and air freight combined — especially when distribution needs to be hurried. When we are dealing with transportation, tracking of a good so necessary and it is needed in every task for it to go out in a perfect way and time so all in all a precise tracking system serves your product in getting delivered accurately. It takes years of planning and executing such that the bags are delivered on time and without damage.
That suitcase is then dispatched to an end point, be it a distribution point, or actual end consumer. The last mile is likely the hardest and most vital part of the journey because it is the final few inches. By this time you literally need another carrier who can atleast service your shipment and get at your consumer timingly. This final stage, completes a long roundabout trip from design to the consumer taking the suitcase home, ready for the upcoming adventure.