Howard Wright Ltd

Howard Wright Ltd was trundling along making basic well engineered hospital beds. However, when the company started talking directly to its customers, its products became the most slept in hospital beds in New Zealand, and business grew fast in Australia.

The need for marketing

Bruce Moller, CEO of medical bed and stretcher designer and manufacturer, Howard Wright Ltd, is the first to admit that his company was in need of some intensive care itself before it entered Better by Design’s Design Integration Programme in April 2005.

“We really had our backs against the wall. We were making a good product, but we were being bashed about in the market.”

The New Plymouth based company was founded in 1963 when engineer, Howard Wright, was asked by a local nurse to design a more comfortable and ergonomic hospital bed. Wright designed a bed using the latest hydraulics techniques which proved so successful he soon opened a dedicated hospital bed factory. But by 2005 the company needed to develop stronger international sales to build a more viable business.

“I don’t think we understood marketing at all and, although we understood engineering design, we didn’t understand industrial design. The analogy would be that we were good structural engineers, but not good architects,” says Moller.

Focusing on the customer

One of the first things the company learned from Design 360 assessment was that they needed to get closer to their customers. In short, they had to do some hospital visiting to talk to the people who used their beds: from cleaners, to patients, to the nursing and medical teams.

“Better by Design taught us not to just take note of what people tell you, but to learn to observe. That gave us insights that you wouldn’t just get from conversations.

Some of the things we thought were valuable were not necessarily what our customers thought were valuable.”

Hospital staff said they wanted products that were intuitive and easy to use, so Howard Wright Ltd stepped up its industrial design capacity and now has five in its design team. Better by Design helped the company to define and clarify its positioning. Their company slogan became Howard Wright Cares along with the catchwords: simple, smart, human.

Moller says there has definitely been a cultural change inside the company since undertaking the Design Integration Programme.

“I think that probably at the beginning I didn’t realise how great it would be for our business.”

“Over the last five years we have become a company that is better at listening to our customers. We have been questioned and challenged about what we do. By doing this we think we have got better results and we have reduced our risk of getting it wrong.”

Better economic performance

Moller says the programme also resulted in dramatic changes to the company’s economic performance.

“Would we still be here if we hadn’t done it? We may have found something else to do, but we wouldn’t have the potential we have now.”

“We now produce products that are practical, human and intuitive: products that people love. We put a lot of time into getting things right as opposed to producing technology that was not a delight to use.”

Howard Wright Ltd is now the major supplier of hospital beds in New Zealand, and its Australian business is growing – it is in the top three in that market. Overall, sales over the last five years in all markets have increased 10 to 15 percent each year and, in 2010, the company is planning to increase its production by 10 percent. Staff has grown from 32 to 40 over the past five years.

Howard Wright Ltd’s latest product, the M8 intensive care bed, which allows imaging of patients without moving them from the bed, has been developed since the company entered the Design Integration Programme. It was launched in December 2009.

Says Moller: “So much of our recent development has incorporated all our learning from Better by Design… sales of the M8 are already beyond our expectations and feedback of our design led approach has been very encouraging.”