There we mentioned a young company, Bug labs, based in NYC, that makes open source modular components allowing DIYers to build their own gadgets. The idea, anway, was that they were for DIYers. According to this article in Electronic Design, however, most of its sales are actually going to corporate entities building prototypes or small production runs. “The open nature of BUGbase makes it easy to add a custom module at significantly lower cost and risk than a completely unique prototype” they say.
This is because the high cost of the prototype translates into high risk for the company. It also leads to a problem that Peter Semmelhack of Buglabs underscores: “failure is not an option.” This is something that seems right as a quality control maxim for the final product. But in the prototyping phase, going-for-broke isn’t such a bad thing. Prototypes, after all, “should be throwaways. They are designed to provide information, even negative information. They are experiments.”
Being able to build prototypes on the cheap allows people with specific objectives to build it themselves from off-the-shelf functional building blocks. BugLabs also has a test kitchen in its NYC offices where people can come in and experiment. They’ve recently offered a course there on Bioelectiricty where CEO, Semmelhack, built his own heart monitor. Indeed he has suggested that the time is ripe for open-source health technology design.
Mainstreaming modular production technology would obviously expand the sort of problems that hyios can accept in the future. Seekers can state a prototype on an open product platfrom as an objective and solvers can devise a prototype that will best meet individual seeker needs. This possibility of fast-tracking product-specification has attracted Accenture Consulting to partner with BugLabs. This partnership with BUG labs is, from a financial perspective, likely a huge coup for the small start up.
Accenture envisions that, in connection with its own proprietary software, AMOS, information coming from BUG-built devices can be processed and made availabe for the companies that have contracted with ACCENTURE (shipping and logistics-devices are obvious example). But, as always, consulting arrangements involve lots of mediation and high costs for a company. There’s not necessarily a good reason to go through an expensive mediation relationship, since modular designs like BUGS are built to be interoperable with a variety of softwares and platforms.
hypios thinks Bug labs is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s clear that a more open design commons coupled with the possibility of flexible and cheap prototyping (LEGOs-style) would accelerate the reach and intensify the effects of open-innovation models. When the prospect is fast-tracking customizeable, innovative functionality, secrecy Apple-style is unlikely to rule the day..it just won’t be able to keep up.
Tags: Accenture, Bug Labs, DIY, Open Innovation, product development, prototypes
Become a fan
