"Visiting Festool" 8-part series is complete

[Nicholas Noe]

Hi everyone,

I've finally got all of the articles on my visit to Festool complete, and all listed on a single page:

http://www.core77.com/posts/38326/Core77-Visits-Festool

[member=44099]Cheese[/member], if you follow the link to Part 8, you can read about the company's take on hobbyists vs. pros. Contrary to what you may have previously thought, they're not dismissive of hobbyists; each category plays their role.

hope you dig it,

- Nick

 

[peter halle]

I read those additional articles a couple of days ago while researching something and I would like to offer up to you  [thumbs up] [thumbs up] [thumbs up] [thumbs up] [thumbs up] [thumbs up] for your neutrality based writing also your overall delivery of information with a flair.

Well Done [member=49148]Nicholas Noe[/member] in my book!

Peter

 

[teocaf]

Yes, very good writeup.  Reading the section on testing reminded me of my years at Motorola where I conducted destructive, environmental and Accelerated Life Testing on their phones and police radios back during a time when their stuff was indestructible.  I'm not sure if that's still valid today, but I hope Festool continues to keep their testing up to the high levels indicated.

Perhaps you mentioned it and I missed it, but one thing that may have been stressed more is how Festool designs many of their products to work as a 'system', much more so than their competitors, and that puts them ahead of the pack even more.

Well done, Nicholas.  Enjoyed reading the entire series.

 

[ScotF]

This is one of the best articles/series I have read - excellent stuff. Thanks!!

 

[krisberden]

I found these articles very interesting. Thank you very much!
Kris

 

[AlexThePalex]

Good articles, nice to read some more about the backgrounds of this company.

 

[Birdhunter]

Very well written.

 

[Nicholas Noe]

Thanks everyone, I hope it was as fun to read as it was to write.

[member=1674]Peter Halle[/member] , if you're ever researching something specific and hit a dead end, feel free to drop me a line; if I know of an info source that's up that alley, I'll forward it to you.

[member=2205]teocaf[/member] , excellent point on the system-based approach; I had started to draft a separate entry on it (the Plug-It cords, vac hoses, Systainers, Centrotec bits etc.) but ultimately couldn't fit it into eight parts. In retrospect I probably should have swapped it in for the current Part 7. The bright side is I'll have something to write about down the line. P.S. Much respect for your work at Motorola, testers never get their due; it's not like an end user will come up to you ten years later, hold up a battered, functioning product and say "Hey, thanks for making sure this lasted this long!"

If you haven't already, you guys may also want to read the Festool trip coverage from ProToolReviews and David Frane's pieces in Tools of the Trade.

Frane has experience in the trades and great insights; he's put together a lot of fun-to-click-through (and deep!) slideshows with comments for each shot. One of my favorites of his from the trip was non-Festool-specific. Festool brought us to what has to be Germany's largest and most comprehensive tool seller, their selection was amazing:

http://www.toolsofthetrade.net/tools-and-equipment/50-cool-things-you-could-have-seen-at-the-tool-store-in-aichstetten--germany_o.aspx?dfpzone=blogs.davidfrane

On the trip, I was amazed at Clint from ProToolReviews' ability to crank out content. I need to be sitting in a quiet room at a large table with papers spread all over it to write, which is why the series took me so long; in contrast Clint was walking around between the Festool events tapping away at his phone. I assumed he was Tweeting, but at one point he said something like "Okay, finished another one;" I then realized he had been writing complete articles on his phone! And they're all pro quality!

http://www.protoolreviews.com/manufacturer/festool/

- Nick

 

[teocaf]

Frane has experience in the trades and great insights; he's put together a lot of fun-to-click-through (and deep!) slideshows with comments for each shot. One of my favorites of his from the trip was non-Festool-specific. Festool brought us to what has to be Germany's largest and most comprehensive tool seller, their selection was amazing:

http://www.toolsofthetrade.net/tools-and-equipment/50-cool-things-you-could-have-seen-at-the-tool-store-in-aichstetten--germany_o.aspx?dfpzone=blogs.davidfrane

Great additional links Nicholas!  Loved David Frane's slideshow of that incredible tool dealership.  Looks to me from the pic of the sanders and his comments that perhaps we can see a Festool version of the Mirka Deros in the US before too long.

You've mentioned that naturally you can't write about some of the stuff you've seen that's coming from Festool.  Perhaps we can all start guessing and you blink once for 'no' and twice for 'yes'.  Hmm, that may not work on this format;  how about 1 bitcoin for 'no' and two euros for 'yes'...

 

[Cheese]

[member=49148]Nicholas Noe[/member]

[member=44099]Cheese[/member], if you follow the link to Part 8, you can read about the company's take on hobbyists vs. pros. Contrary to what you may have previously thought, they're not dismissive of hobbyists; each category plays their role.

hope you dig it,

- Nick

Thanks for the heads-up on Part 8. I read all of the articles and enjoyed all of them.  [thumbs up]

I find it interesting that Marketing is only brought into the loop after the product is already at the 90-95% level. In my experience, Engineering and Marketing usually worked together from the beginning because Marketing was supposed to be "the voice of the customer".
That may explain some of the "disconnects" in the marketing of the Festool line. For instance, selling the TS 55/75 saw for use on plaster and cement-bonded fibre materials, yet not making a blade suitable for these materials available for the saws.  [eek]

So, I take it your telling of Festool tales is not over and you probably have some more up your sleeve?  I sure hope so. [big grin]

 

[Nicholas Noe]

I find it interesting that Marketing is only brought into the loop after the product is already at the 90-95% level. In my experience, Engineering and Marketing usually worked together from the beginning because Marketing was supposed to be "the voice of the customer".

[member=44099]Cheese[/member] , this has more to do with how one defines "Marketing." In the U.S. in particular the category is pretty broad. The way that it works at Festool--and this is just my observation, not an official explanation that was given to me--is that their Marketing department is the group responsible for explaining and demonstrating the product to the consumer. The few folks I met from that group seem young and media-savvy.

However, what you and I might think of as Market Research is conducted, at least in the case of the Conturo, by a development team led by an older man with direct experience in the field they're researching, as opposed to say, the young kids with college degrees in Marketing.

This seemed a pretty sensible approach to me. It sidesteps a problem I've seen in other organizations, where a Marketing person who does not have a good grasp of technical matters will insist on a solution that cannot feasibly be executed. Political pressures can then force the engineers to work on what was a harebrained idea in the first place, and the result is disaster. I like Festool's approach better in that Marketing is brought in at the end, and their clear-cut task is to focus on what they were trained to do: Educate the customer on the solution the researchers and engineers have achieved.

I can't speak to the TS being marketed towards plaster and cement-bonded fiber materials, can you elaborate?

thanks,

- Nick

 

[Nicholas Noe]

So, I take it your telling of Festool tales is not over and you probably have some more up your sleeve?  I sure hope so. [big grin]

I've got long sleeves! 

 

[Cheese]

[member=49148]Nicholas Noe[/member]

[member=44099]Cheese[/member] , this has more to do with how one defines "Marketing." In the U.S. in particular the category is pretty broad. The way that it works at Festool--and this is just my observation, not an official explanation that was given to me--is that their Marketing department is the group responsible for explaining and demonstrating the product to the consumer. The few folks I met from that group seem young and media-savvy.

I like Festool's approach better in that Marketing is brought in at the end, and their clear-cut task is to focus on what they were trained to do: Educate the customer on the solution the researchers and engineers have achieved.

I can't speak to the TS being marketed towards plaster and cement-bonded fiber materials, can you elaborate?

thanks,

- Nick

That makes more sense. Just a matter of semantics. The "Marketing" group brought in at the end would actually be a subset of marketing and be referred to as the training/manuals/field service group.

As for the political pressures on engineers, it's always been a tight wire act between Sales, Marketing, Engineering and Manufacturing. Other groups may be involved but it's the big 4 that provided most of the fireworks.

In reference to the TS, you can see the references to plaster & cement on page 10 and the recomended speed range on page 12 of the TS 55 REQ manual below. Same thing for the TS 75.

http://www.festoolusa.com/media/pdf/703959_002_TS%2055%20REQ_USA.pdf