period:
COMPANY:
July 2015 - July 2016
INDUSTRY:
Healthcare
Sport
3D Printing
Podoactiva
LOCATION:
Spain
Product Designer
MY ROLE:
Younext was created as an Innovation Lab inside Podoactiva, a leading international Spanish company in biomechanical and podiatry treatments.
Younext is focused on creating customized products and treatments for the orthopedics and sport industry that would improve patients’ quality of life by making the most of all the accumulated experience by Podoactiva during the protocols of 3D scan, robotic design and manufacturing.
I had a lead role in a cross-functional team that creates those innovative treatments through a human centered design process with the following achievements:
All Younext achievements were possible thanks to a great cross-functional team that included orthopedists, engineers, designers and management specialists.
We created an agile team with constant communication and collaboration. That allowed to create innovative treatments through an iterative human centered design process with stages of research, design, test and evaluate.
Orthopedics is an industry that hasn't evolved.
The use of orthopedics treatments has a bad perception by society.
Turn the orthopedics industry upside down.
Taking the most of Podoactiva's philosophy, work methodology, technology, resources and clients network.
Create customized products and treatments for the whole anatomy of each one of our patients.
Younext lead the use of technology such as 3D scanners, 3D printers and CAD software in the biomechanical industry.
Understanding how these tools can be used was critical to define the opportunities and limitations for designing new treatments. It was also a challenges due they were pretty new technologies in the market.
Understanding how these tools can be used was critical to define the opportunities and limitations for designing new treatments. It was also a challenges due they were pretty new technologies in the market.
As a leading company in the biomechanical industry, we received several proposals each week to define new treatments using our technology.
Testing the technology possibilities had driven us to create a variety of solutions and health treatments for different parts of the body. We had validated those solutions were technically feasible, now we needed to validate if they were viable.
The BCG matrix helped us to showcase our actual state and consider the products potential in the market.
This matrix showed we were taking a high risk with lots of products without a defined category.
It was time to discover the treatments' market fit. We had to find business opportunities.
We joined the accelerator program of Ibercaja (a Spanish bank) where we had mentoring sessions of design thinking and lean methodologies with the aim of seeking our product market fit.
It was a great opportunity to share the design problems with the company managers and build a new product strategy together.
We defined business model hypothesis to have a global vision of our products strategy. Those hypothesis were tested through an iterative customer development process and the business model canvas was reshaped till we validated all ideas.
Actual trends were analyzed to know they impact they may have in our business innovation.
We realized a few trends in tech had a huge positive impact in our way to work. We needed to keep working hard on that direction if we wanted keep being ahead of other companies.
How may actual trends affect our business?
- Bring us closer to our potential market.
- We will have the tools needed more accessible.
- Other business may be closer to those tools as well.
- It will be important not to loose the customization factor in our product even being aware of the time required.
- Our methodology of work already creates tailored and customized solutions.
- It will require a constant analysis and alignment with lastest technology.
- It will improve and speed up our methodology of work.
- It will improve the quality and durability of our products.
We analyzed our competitors in other to know how other orthopedic business were innovating and how we could differentiate our treatments.
Manufacturing
Logistics
Retail
The one that patients know and trust.
The one that doctors and specialists prescribe.
Unique and complex products.
Materials innovation.
Specialist in customized health corsets by 3D Scanner and modeling.
Customized masks and orthopedics inmobilizations.
Casts modeling.
"I want professional solutions that make me become the best."
"I want to offer the best treatments to my patient by using the technology and methodology that they already trust."
The Podoactiva Biomechanical Specialist is the one in contact with the Athlete/Patient to prescribe the treatment together.
What do we need to improve?
Teach our biomechanical specialists about 3D scan and they will be able to offer more treatment to their patients.
"When I have a health problem, I go to talk with my doctor or I look for a professional clinic. I always trust on their prescription."
"I want a tool that will improve my work performance and the quality of my treatments."
We need a doctor to be able to prescribe the new treatments health related.
What do we need to improve?
It is a pretty new market for 3D technology so the first step would be showcase them the possibilities to win their trust.
As part of the new business model generated, we designed and built a website to showcase the revolutionary treatments and products created thanks to the innovative methodology and technology used.
This website allowed us to increase our credibility with stakeholders and proposed new working areas and projects with potential partners.
We tested this process with several doctors and we got some successful cases where the patient were really exited about the customized treatment.
This helped us to have some case of success to that we published to be known for other doctors.
We thought that doctors will start contacting us to prescribe our treatments but it wasn't the case... So we understood the doctors wanted to have the control of the treatment, and they wanted solutions where they were part of the process.
When the doctors understood the process and saw they could be part of the process by taking the measurements through the 3D scan they were willing to collaborate with us.
They found a competitive advantage when realized they could be part painless process of taking measurements with a 3D scan was much more convenient for their patients.
In this case we contacted with a higher amount of doctors who were willing to use our technology.
That improved our work methodology by having a diverse amount of new treatments to design and develop.
In spite of that, at the moment of establishing a short of collaboration between us and the doctors we didn't get anything official that will ensure us any kind of revenue.
We realized that it was time to start talking with the health clinics managers.
At this point we started to have conversations with hospitals and health clinics managers in order to define collaboration options.
In most cases, the hospital were interested in take part in the whole design and development process by implanting an Engineering Department in their Clinics. In that case we would collaborate with them providing all the equipment needed, facilitating the training to their employees or even having someone of our specialists working with them in the hospital.
After negotiating with some hospitals we got a collaboration agreement with one of them. Podoactiva engineers and medical specialist would work together in order to define the best approach to use our work methodology in their hospitals.
One of my achievements at Younext was the improvement of the shin pads design and manufacturing process. A considerable increment of the shin pads commercialization was produced due of that improvement. That led us (the two product designers) to increase the time dedicated to the shin pads design instead of working in other innovation projects.
Trying to automatise the process that already worked to be able to dedicate our time to other projects in the innovation lab, both designers started working in a shin pad customizer platform were the customer could design their stickers' shin pads. As designers, we still had to create the shin pads from the legs 3D scanners but that platform would save us a huge amount of time on the customized stickers.