Design & Manufacturing

So where do all these new tools come from, at such an incredible pace? The simple answer? Competition. The long answer? The industry's unprecedented investment in research and development; its commitment to ergonomics, safety, and health; its drive to compete on price points and margins; and, as the market is flooded with more tools every year, each company's search for product delineation.

"The growth in our R&D budget is higher than the growth in our sales," says Hilti president Gil Morris. "We're completely committed to research and innovation. That's what keeps our pipeline full."

Ergonomics. For many companies, ergonomic design is one of the most important tributaries feeding that pipeline, and the proliferation of features both visible and hidden in all kinds of tools is evidence of this trend.

But it goes way beyond adding rubber grips onto tool handles. Lighter weight, lower vibration, quieter operation, and easy-to-reach controls have all become standard design considerations. "Ergonomic considerations used to come at the end of the design cycle. It would be one of the last things you looked at," says Gary van Deursen, vice president of innovation for Stanley. "That changed in 1994, when we put it at the beginning of our design process."

"Ergonomics has to be the first or second most important factor in tool design these days," confirms Ridgid's Bruce. "And it's extremely challenging in power tools, where you've got size-restricted components like motors that have to fit within a housing. That's driving designers to develop smaller, more powerful motors."

Health considerations play into design early on as well -- especially with tools that raise hazardous dust. "We're very focused on safety and health," says Morris. "We focus on things like dust control, torque control, vibration management, and hazardous conditions from the start. Basically, I ask myself, 'Would I want my kid doing that job?'"

Product Development. Everything is faster, from product development and design to manufacturing. It has to be, because the cycle time from when tools roll out to when new models replace them has gotten much shorter. "The shelf life of tools is starting to remind me of lettuce in a grocery store," says Terry Cooper, pricing and inventory manager of Orco Construction Supply. "How do we keep up with that?" That's a good question, and one that tool companies are asking themselves about their own processes.

Product development cycles that used to take three to four years on average now span one to two years. "Accelerated simulations and testing have allowed us to reduce development time to about two years," says DeWalt's Nichols. The story is similar throughout the industry: Bosch's 18-month cycle, Milwaukee's one- to two-year process, Hitachi's 10-month engineering platform, Senco's 18-month cycle, and Ridgid's 18-month-or-less process. "We've actually done it in four months," says Ridgid's Bruce. "I wouldn't want to do that all the time, but it can be done."

Faster turnaround of models puts the heat on every aspect of product development, from its concept, design, prototyping, and testing, right down to its marketing. The pressure gets passed down to component vendors, too, who have to supply tool companies with the plastic, aluminum, and tooling. Everybody is under the same gun.

Luckily, they have the technology to back them up. "Computers have changed everything," says Milwaukee's Hachey. "We can produce complex plastic prototypes overnight, and the prototype materials are better than ever." Hitachi and Ridgid use CAD programs that show color-coded stress points, like a weather-channel storm-tracker, to shorten their processes. "We'll work a lot of bugs out of a tool even before we produce our first working prototype," says Hitachi's Gruber. "We can take a tool to failure while it's still in the computer."

Ridgid's global design teams are at work 24 hours a day. "When one of our teams in one country finishes work for the day, they transfer their projects over to teams around the world," explains Bruce. "When they get back to work the next day there's a good chance those projects will have taken their next step." And product development teams at Stanley conduct worldwide video-conferencing meetings, making real-time changes to CAD files on the spot. These are fitting developments, given the role that global manufacturing is playing in our tool world.