REVOLUTION AND EVOLUTION
During development, we will often choose two paths, revolution and evolution. Revolution is a completely new way of approaching the design or solving the problem, where evolution is a more systematic approach that refines the current idea. By chasing both paths, we are always in pursuit of real innovation without being forced to take something to market that does not beat one of our tried and tested designs.
As with most revolutions, this starts with a bold new idea or a clear problem, which will take a significantly different approach to solve. It is often challenging to differentiate revolution from evolutionary, as one can start as one and end as the other. But yes, we love to chase the Big Hairy Audacious Goals such as making a product 30% lighter, or last twice as long, be 30% Cheaper, have half of the Carbon footprint or get you going in half of the wind strength.
Chasing the smallest details can often create a significantly improved overall outcome. It's often difficult to market this, but can be a huge differentiator, specifically over years of development or products with high complexity. The best example of this is when we are chasing weight improvement. With boards, we would weigh every single layer of glass before laminating, weigh the core, all the inserts and even the paint and finish to optimize this for production. In kites we might optimize the size of every reinforcing patch, size and thickness of struts, even the weight and amount of connection points can all be considered when chasing an overall improvement.
