Duku were approached by Safran and asked to provide a design workshop for senior engineers and designers in their global aircraft landing gear team last month. The afternoon consisted of a series of interactive talks hosted by Duku's Directors Andrew and Alex, as well as other members of the design team.
ABOUT SAFRAN
After decades at the forefront of the industry, Safran has established itself as one of the world's leading aerospace manufacturers; with over 76,000 employees worldwide, the organisation has developed everything from aircraft propulsion to military defence equipment and rocket propulsion systems.
Looking to the future, Safran has a particular interest in helping contribute to safer and more sustainable aviation, with hybrid, electric and low-carbon aircraft propulsion a key focus in the coming years.
THE WORKSHOP
The two workshop sessions hosted by Duku aimed to provide Safran's team with valuable insight into the design and prototyping processes adopted by a cutting-edge design consultancy, which they could then adopt within their own business going forward.
The first of the sessions consisted of a typical design task which Duku's designers face on a regular basis. Safran's team were asked to complete the task using Duku's efficient methods of concept development. Participants were encouraged to develop their own design solutions, before they were then shown some of Duku's current and past projects in the second of the sessions.
The team of engineers from Mexico City, Paris and Toronto were amazed by how our comparatively small team worked on such a large number of diverse projects; designing and engineering in-house.
Following the workshop, there was a fantastic opportunity for both teams to network and share ideas and processes with each other over an informal lunch. Duku's team saw this as an opportunity to learn about the methods of a multi-national organisation such as Safran.
Following the event, Ernest Leung, Safran Landing Systems – VP Engineering North America commented:
“We loved the process that you had and the breadth of different opportunities that you get to face from a product design perspective”.