EPISODE 1 - CHAD ROBBINS

Welcome to the Impulse Spotlight where we meet with product development professionals and shine a light on the products they are most proud of.

In this episode, we interview Chad Robbins with Newell Brands and discuss the development of the three products in the Baby Jogger City Home Collection.

Click the image below to watch the interview on YouTube or you can listen to the audio by clicking the play button below the image.

Show notes:

You can find the Baby Jogger Home Collection here.

Podcast Transcript:

Welcome to the impulse spotlight, a podcast for product development professionals. In this episode, we interview our very first guest, someone I'm proud to call a friend who's an oyster shucker turned engineer. Chad Robbins grew up in a family of oyster shuckers. His grandfather started a catering business that focused on oysters and he spent many a weekend steaming and shucking oysters for parties around Baltimore. His cousin is actually a national oyster shucking champion. In his downtime, Chad loves to get out in nature, go camping, mountain biking, and off-roading. And he's most proud of positively impacting our planet and the teams we work with throughout professional lives.

In this episode, Chad spotlights three separate products in the Baby Jogger City collection and how each product followed a different design path in order to become a finished idea. We also discuss alternative tools and production methods used within infant care products when designers face unique challenges as well as the importance of choosing the right suppliers for the task at hand. Finally, we look into the emerging need within the consumer market for durable and sustainable products.

Let's get into it.

Hey, Chad. Welcome to the show.

Hey, thanks. Looking forward to it.

Yeah, so to begin, tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get into product development?

Sure. So yeah, it was born and raised Baltimore, Maryland. Living in a house with both my mom and dad were very hands on. Always doing DIY projects, renovations, so the hobbies I had grown up to kind of got me into mechanical things, whether it's fixing bikes or RC cars or so. Always kind of been around being hands on, working with tools, loved it. So it came time to look for, you know, think about a career in colleges and I knew from day one I was going to be an engineer. I dabbled in nuclear engineering to try to be different, realized it just wasn't where my heart was, so ended up in mechanical engineering. And yeah, I went to Georgia Tech and looking for co-op jobs, kind of explored all possible industries, but even from the time I was prusing jobs, research and development kind of jump to the top is being, wow, this could be really fun. Like, you know, create things, build them and then see them out in the wild. So yeah, landed a co-op in medical devices and really never looked back. I fell in love with it and 20 years later I'm still digging it every day. So yeah, that's, that's what I got here.

Very cool.So what's your current role?What kind of products do you develop now?

Yeah, so I work for Newell Brands. I lead the NUK North America Research and Development team. So NUK is baby care items, think pacifiers, bottles, cups, tableware, breast pumps, all those sorts of things.

Cool. So tell us a little bit about the product that you want to talk about today and why you chose that one in particular.

Sure. So, yeah, the, the platform is the city, city home collection from baby jogger. Really proud of the collection. So baby jogger, if you're not familiar with it, it's a, the roots were, well, the original jogging stroller was invented by baby jogger years and years ago. And for the longest time, they were really focused on strollers. Higher end strollers, very durable designs, premium, nice aesthetics geared towards that kind of on the go, mom. We wanted to kind of expand the brand and branch it in new categories. So I was responsible for bringing it into the home category. So we had developed a suite of three different home products. There was a play yard, you know, a play space slash sleeping space. Then a high chair and then a infant seat, a bouncer rocker seat. So three really awesome products. And I think the reason I'm so proud of them is, I mean, one, they look great, check them out on, on babyjogger.com. But what we were going with is really awesome, because it was a new space, we needed some new technology to kind of get us into the space and really kind of make a splash. So we coupled some really great technology really around on the go and folding and lightweight and coupled that with some really great premium aesthetics. And it's not always easy to have great technology coupled with great aesthetics just because a lot of times the technology, the mechanisms to track from the clean look. But really proud of how they turned out and then, you know, we can talk about it, but the path to market for each of these three were very different, different suppliers, different development processes.

So cool. Are there any other, you talked about a little bit, but are there any other features or innovations or things that we wouldn't know about the product just by looking at it?

Yeah, so each of the three have something novel about them, which is great and not easy to do in such a big collection. But yeah, the rocker balancer is kind of one of a kind. It has two different types of mom powered motions, folds flat, you know, really nice portable, compact product, soothing product. The high chair is incredibly small when folded. It's for the most part of full featured high chair, but the fold is really what differentiates at the market and just that really clean aesthetic looks great in the home. And then finally, the play yard, you would notice the claims of lightest play yard, lightest multi-level play yard in the market in the world. But we've also added some features in spring loaded legs, for example, to kind of aid in that fold and portable aspect of it.

Cool. How, you mentioned the height your folded up pretty small, how small does it get?

 So it's kind of a three-dimensional fold, so it not only folds, you know, flat, but also the height kind of compresses down to, you know, maybe gosh, put me on the spot here, a big briefcase. But yeah, easily just throw it in the closet when you're not using it. So yeah, really, really nice product.

Cool. Were there any novel or interesting technologies, materials, methods used to develop these products?

You know, a lot of them use kind of our standard metal forming processes and injection molding soft goods design. I'd say the one thing to call out maybe on the high chairs, we were going for a very, you know, this premium aesthetic, but a very kind of dynamic, active aesthetic in one of the

ways the ID team wanted to get that was through kind of these complex tube shapes. So they wanted this, you know, tapered tube design in the rear, which is, you know, not easy to produce. And it looked at a lot of different ways to produce that. But we ultimately went down the path of hydro forming, which if you're not familiar with it, it's essentially you take a standard tube, put it into a mold and, you know, inject fluid inside to kind of expand that tube outward to the mold so you can get some, some really complex shapes. So this was outside of our supply base. We had to find some new suppliers to do this. A lot of learnings on the limitations of the process, but ultimately it was something that we felt very strong about to just elevate the aesthetic.

Very cool. So walk us through the journey of developing the product, like how did it get from an idea to something on the shelf.

Yeah, sure. So like I said, each of these has very different paths to launch. I guess for all three of these, you know, we kind of had to start with, you know, how to scope the project and what that scope should be. So really going back to the roots of who Baby Jager is as a brand. It's around being active and portable and not letting your little one kind of impede your lifestyle. So that's what worked on the stroller side. We wanted to bring it to the home side. So we said, okay, they have to be able to fold. They have to be lightweight, easy to move around. So we tested, you know, some different concepts with consumers to see what consumers would gravitate towards in terms of feature set. Once we had that identified, then it was a matter of how do we go about developing the product. So each of these had a different development path. So the rocker balancer was actually the bouncing rocking technology had been developed by a supplier. We had then rolled it into the Baby Jogger aesthetic used the industrial design from our team and then incorporated this fold flat design. So that was a pretty streamlined development process because we had a nice starting point that we were really able to leverage. And we maintained the same supplier from the entire  development of the project. So very much streamlined from that standpoint. The high chair was a bit more complex. So scoped is an ultra compact high chair, full featured high chair. We started it as what we call an ODM model. So we leveraged the development resources of the suppliers. So we scoped them on, you know, the size requirements of the fold and kind of generally what we wanted to look like and let them do some exploration. After some time with that, we realized that it just wasn't working out the path they were going down just wasn't a robust design. It was a bit of a rickety design. So we decided to bring that in-house, convert it to a full OEM development where we use our internal resources to do completely the development on it. So yeah, we did the internal development prototype to proof of concepts, you know, got it industrial design involved, soft goods, fully developed the product and then we took it to back to that initial supplier, let them make some adjustments to fit their process, get the costing. Unfortunately, the costing came in really high at that point. So we did have to pivot very late in the game and it find another supplier that could hit our cost targets, which required some further tweaks to the design as well to fit within that new suppliers capabilities. So that was the high chair, a bit of back and forth in the play yard, it was a very similar story. We had started it with, you know, we took a standard travel play yard kind of the functionality, the fold mechanism and then we added features to make it easier to fold, make it lighter weight and add this, I guess I didn't talk about it, but we have the elevated sleep surface, the bassinet is a, we kind of called it an integrated bassinet where all the structure needed for that elevated sleep surface was always attached to the play yard and it would stow away in a zippered pouch in a really clean manner underneath the top rail of the play yard. So we had a nice starting point, we layered on some additional technology, we initially had scope day supplier to do some of this development work and again, we just had some issues with how that was going. So we brought this one internally as well and turned it to an OEM development and this was OEM development the entire way through and when we started looking for suppliers, we kind of considered all the options, but we did have an internal plant that has some very good soft goods capabilities that was a perfect fit for this. So we were able to produce it in our own plant and yeah, so that was it for that one, that.

Cool. I assume with the different complexities that they all had different timelines.

Yeah, so they all had to launch at the same time. You know, we got some end caps, it's some of the major retailers and we kind of wanted to release it all, you know, in one big splash. But yeah, development timelines difference, the rocker bouncer was all, well, I would say, they all kind of were kicked off about the same time. The bouncer rocker just had some, a lot more cushion in there. That was a very streamlined development. I would say that one could have probably gone 12 months start to finish. The other two were, you know, two, two and a half years. But yeah, we kind of launched them all the same time.

Cool. Tell us a little bit about your team. How many people were involved in development and, you know, what were the different roles?

Sure. Yeah, a lot of cross functional skills that came together to make this happen. I think the one of the two common threads that we had throughout, which is really helpful is one solid brand marketer to kind of guide these and make sure that they're all a cohesive lineup. And same thing with the industrial designer, we had one industrial designer that spanned all three. This just helps that cohesion and consistency between the platforms. And then supporting that we had engineering obviously takes a bit more resources. So we had probably a half of a head on the rocker bouncer. And we were able to streamline that just because we were leveraging the development resources of the supplier. The play yard, we had two full time engineers for on and off, but for most of the project. And then the high chair had, I would say probably three engineers, not all of them full time allocated to it, but often on based on skill sets needed throughout the development. And then there was soft goods designers. I think we had two soft goods designers. The play yard was very labor intensive and a lot of work went into getting that clean aesthetic. So I would say probably a full soft goods engineer on the play yard and the other two or another soft goods designer. And then of course, there's some fashion color folks along the way that kind of sprinkle in, but a lot of people have to come together to kind of make it happen. What were some of the key milestones that you guys reached throughout the development? Yeah, sure. So milestones, I think the first big one is that concept test that we do where it's very high level screening that this general idea is something that consumers would embrace and that they would buy. So once we have that, it can kind of kick us off into the detailed development. So that was a big milestone. I'd then say proof of concept models where we figure out the mechanism that we're going to use to kind of achieve the  functionality we need. That's another big one. But again, those could be even Frankenstein models, RP models, not very refined. Yeah, and then I mean, the other like last big is just what we would call like a design freeze, which is incorporating and a prototype, the final industrial design aesthetic with production representative parts that the entire team can play with. We can get consumers interact with and kind of everybody hold hands and say, yeah, this is what we want to launch. So there's a kind of big milestones. I mean, of course, we got to get into production and validate and all that, but yeah.

What were the biggest challenges you guys faced? You mentioned the supplier issues and all that, but what would you see as the biggest challenge? You guys faced during the development?

Yeah, so the high chair, just packing so much mechanism into something that's got to look great was really challenging and have the structure of a typical high chair, the rigidity of the typical high chair. So that that took a lot of iteration and one of the main reasons we brought it in house, we were able to kind of use some mechanisms from some other strollers and high chairs, to kind of limit what we had to develop, but yeah, that for sure was a challenge, a lot of iteration. The play yard itself was incredibly challenging. I think the soft goods development was probably one of the hardest things to nail on that one. So when set up, we want the play yard to look really clean. So tight fabrics just have that really premium aesthetic. Of course, when it folds, now I've seen those tight fabrics are going to kind of impede the folding. So yeah, trying to figure out a way to either have fabric stretch where needed, but not necessarily everywhere or slide and kind of get out of the way of some of the mechanisms so it can fold. But then of course, when you set it back up, you need everything to return to that tight position. So easier said than done, and it's something that you would never kind of notice when just looking at the product at shelf. But yeah, a lot went into that. And then actually just getting the spring loaded legs to operate the way we wanted to was shockingly challenging. We started with some gas springs thinking that was would have a nice kind of slow dampened spring effect. The problem with them is they're expensive. They don't last forever. We were having trouble finding a good supplier with them. So we ended up just going to a standard kind of spring piston design and kind of manually doing some of that dampening. But even that proved to be challenging because you have the spring tension on your latch, which is going to put friction in your latch and it's going to make the button hard to operate. So a lot we had to overcome with that. But yeah, with all product development, there's always little things along the way that's just kind of bumps that you got to overcome. But ended up working out with regards to the spring.

Does that allow for it to automatically fold or is it just assist with the fold?

So there's basically two operations to get it to fold. There's the four legs have to be button for each leg. It flicks up the legs. So the springs kind of aid in in following up those legs into position and then the entire player folds in half at that point. Just kind of a small little nice consumer interaction to help them through the process, controlling the motion of those legs.

What prototyping processes did you employ during the development?

Yeah, quite a bit. So we've got one with anything that folds, we'll typically start with whatever material we just find in the shop. So two by four is PVC pipes, tubes. So very crude, nothing looks great. But you can start playing around with size, proportions, mechanisms, pivot points, all that. And then we move into getting into CAD, kind of roughing it out in CAD. And at that point we would use typically. So we have some in-house tube bending, sheet metal fabrication that we can do for the tubing and then we have RP machines, 3D printers that we can do for some of the plastic parts. So those are great because we can do those very quick, quick iterations, a couple days, we'll have parts. The fatality, the strength of the parts, not great. On the 3D printing, at least the internal ones that we use. So once we feel like the design is getting pretty flushed out and we feel good about it, we'll invest in some nicer prototypes. So we have a couple options, the tubing, we typically at that point, we'll start leveraging the suppliers as they just have more tubing capabilities. And then in terms of plastic parts, we either do CNC and plastic parts. So this is common in Asia, super inexpensive, start with a block of polypropylene or we typically use ABS actually, just easier to machine cheaper and just hog out the material. So really high fidelity parts, production representative. So if we're doing like one or two models, we'll do the CNC, plastic parts if we're doing multiples for four lighten, you know, showing the customers or consumer testing or whatever we'll do cast urethanes. So we'll build silicone molds and inject it with urethane. And we can use these for, you know, 5, 10, 20 models. And a lot of that we do in-house. We have a great cast urethane department. It's an amazing process. Very hands on an art form. But yeah, that's pretty much it for part of sighting.

When you get to the fidelity of a cast urethane part and you're making multiples of it, do you use those for marketing samples and things like that too?

Yep.

Okay. Yeah, the finish on the cast urethane is production quality. Arguably better than the CNC ones. And then we have a paint department so we can paint everything and make it look perfect.

Yeah. I've even seen some urethanes where they're textured and you know, they look just like a production part.

Yeah. Yeah, it's incredible.

Yeah.

So switching gears just a little bit, what are some of the trends that you see in product development?

Yeah, that's a good question. I had probably the biggest trend that's on my mind and I would say probably a lot of brands, minds right now is just sustainability and how do we incorporate that into what we do. There's some really interesting research out there right now that says, you know, the vast majority of consumers are thinking about sustainability at shelf when they're purchasing products, which is a little bit surprising just, you know, thinking about the broad demographics of our country. So I actually think a sustainability trend is nichey, but research is telling us that it's absolutely not. The question is how much our consumers willing to pay extra for it and this is just market to market dependent, some markets, they are willing to pay it or something or not. But the fact that they're considering it and the fact that we know it's the right thing to do, we definitely have to start thinking about it in terms of how we develop products. So I think the challenge that we are all are having is, you know, how do we do that cost effectively? There's not an obvious solution, but some of the things that we're looking at are incorporating more sustainable recyclable materials. So either post-consumer recycled materials or bioplastics sustainably produce silicones. And then I think one of the easiest things we can all do is product developers is just make things that last and make things that are serviceable along the way. It doesn't seem as sexy of a way to get to this sustainable end goal, but I think for too many decades we've been designing everything's been just low cost, low cost. Take it to Asia, crank out inexpensive products, some of them are single use or limited use, but they're so inexpensive people don't care. They're on the way, you buy another one. I think it's on us to change that and really take time to carefully think through the details. So you know, things don't break because I mean as silly as it is you might have one boss on an injection molded part that if you didn't think through the structure of that and it ends up snapping now your entire product is rendered useless just because you've rusted a development. You didn't need to go steep sheet metal for that component. It's not like what it worked fine, but you just need to think a little bit more about the structure and the abuse of that product could see. And then the service ability thing is huge, you know, making products that can be taken apart and the components that do tend to wear out one brands offering replacements for those components so they can swap them out, but then also that it's very easy to swap those components out. Some insurgent brands are getting really good at this having serviceable items. There's even some phones out there now that are, you know, completely modular. You can swap out components and the ideas that you really never need to just throw it away and start fresh with a new phone. Mainstream though, this is still not there, but I think it's up to us to kind of start bringing it into the mix, having the conversation, getting it scoped into projects early.

You think it'll have a big impact on cost or you think like materials will develop that will help keep costs down or technologies will develop that will help keep costs down?

It's a good question. I think probably you probably do need to invest a little bit more cost wise in order to get the craftsmanship and the durability that you need. The sustainable materials are typically more expensive. In some cases, not a whole lot more expensive. I mean, steel is already fairly sustainable. It takes a lot of energy to produce it, but it's recyclable forever. But some of the bioplastics, you know, we might see like a 25% increase in resin cost, which is not massive. But I think in terms of just like the durability, the product using better materials does help you, but I think also just being a little bit more thorough in our development, product development or validation is going to, that won't add any cost, but it will ensure that the product lasts longer and withstands the use of our consumers. So yeah, I think it's an interesting topic. I mean, you just see the pressures of Amazon and some of these very low cost goods, supplier selling direct. I mean, that's just putting such cost pressures on all of our markets that it's challenging then to say, okay, we're going to increase the cost of our product 20% because we want it to be more sustainable. So right. Ultimately, I think consumers are going to have to start changing their purchasing behaviors, but yeah.

If you could go back in time and change one thing about the development of the products where you've been talking about, what would it be?

For sure, supplier selection analysis earlier. I think looping them in, late in the game, really put some time pressure on the projects.

So to start wrapping up, thinking about your career, all of the challenges and successes and everything you've encountered along the way, what words of wisdom would you share with somebody looking to get into the product development industry?

Getting into the product development industry.

Yeah, that's a tough one. And I think we have a unique opportunity to kind of shape the future as product developers. We have the ability to kind of look at how things are done today and think of better ways to do it. So I think it's up to us to be creative, to think big, to dream, to kind of envision what the future is and then help us all get there. So be bold, don't be scared away by a big challenge. But I think tempering that with a dose of reality is that there's current limitations in the world, whether it's manufacturing or cost or macro environment that's always good to dream big, to have the vision to know where you're trying to get to, but you might want to take a baby step to get there. So just being a little more thoughtful of how you kind of temper those dreams a little bit.

Awesome. This has been great. Is there anything else you'd like to mention with regards to the product products or product development in general?

Yeah, check us out. Newell Brands has a great portfolio and baby joggers and you know, the city home collection, really proud. The rest of the portfolio is also great. So yeah, babyjogger.com. Yeah, appreciate it.

Awesome.

I’ll add that in the show notes and everybody, click the link and go take a look.

Sounds good.

Awesome, Chad.

I really, really appreciate this and appreciate you being on the show.

Sounds good.

Thanks, Troy

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