The creative, intelligent application of advanced materials can offer distinct advantages over competitors. The use of innovative and advanced materials can be seen as a key selling point and as a marketable advantage over other products.
Choosing the right materials can serve many functions for your business and can help provide clear differentiation over competitors. This is especially evident in sports product markets, for example, where all the elements available to the designer are exploited to enhance product performance.So materials are an important consideration for any product, and if you are involved in making decisions about materials and products then it is important to gain an understanding of different materials and their applications.
Sensible specification of the correct materials can help to reduce the environmental impact of products. There are a number of new laws and regulations that exist in order to address issues of sustainability in materials and manufacturing. Suppliers and manufacturers need to be aware of this new legislation and its impact on the production and use of materials. Details are listed in 'Standards and regulations'
Materials can help create new markets, from luxury to disposable and visa versa. The French company Bic’s brand is built on the use of a commodity (plastic) sold cheaply. Packaging materials can be changed to enhance the product. Consider the expensive paper and board materials used in premium chocolates compared with cheaper brands. Or even mobile phone covers, where it is easy to differentiate two similar plastic phones by the quality of the material and moulding.
A consistent use of a specific material can reinforce a company brand. Look at the transition of the Swiss watch industry from traditional watches to what has become the iconic plastic Swatch watch. The Tupperware brand was built on using polyethylene plastic, which provided new functions and new options for packaging food both on the move and in the home.
Intelligent use of materials can lower costs. Materials can be altered to aid quicker production times and ease manufacturing glitches. Some materials have quicker drying times, moulding times etc. Depending on the volume of production, polyethylene can be manufactured in different ways - some requiring less capital investment than others.
Acquiring knowledge of a range of new technologies allows for businesses to deal with the increasing amount of legislation dictating the responsibilities of manufacturers. A good example is Nokia, which has used a series of shape memory screws which unwind and allow for a retired phone to self-disassemble when placed in hot water. This allows for easy separation of the various components for recycling and re-use.
Public areas such as schools, hospitals, playgrounds, job centres and local government offices are all examples of environments where the intelligent choice of materials can have a great effect on hygiene, safety, physiological well-being, environmental impact and vandal-proofing.
The heavy usage of public transport requires the use of materials with a high degree of resilience to constant wear and to vandalism. The balance of using materials that are both hard wearing and have a degree of warmth and comfort can create an environment which is comfortable and tough… yet doesn't have the feel of the wing of a prison.