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Luca Harrell – Industrial Design Major – Virginia Tech

Jake Eck – Industrial Design Major – NCSU

Josh Little – Industrial Design Major – NCSU

Montie Design Networking Event Friday

Join us this Friday, 30 Mar, from 4:00 to 6:30PM for our Final Friday end of the quarter networking event at Montie Design.  This is a casual, easy going way to relax a few minutes in the company of fellow professionals.  Click Here to pre-register.

Join us at the NC Defense Business Association Expo on April 3-4

Please visit our booth at the Expo in Pinehurst, NC.  This event is a great way to find defense related vendors and network within the NC defense business community.  Click Here to sign up.

Call or Email Today to Discuss Your Project

Want to talk product development or need help with a project?  Don’t hesitate to contact Montie at 919-481-1845×107 or montie@montie.com.

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By Josh : A tree mounted multi-use organizer.

By Jake : An elevated cooking surface with stove.

By Luca : A collapsible wet/dry tree mounted container.

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The 2012 Montie Design / Montie Gear Student Design Contest is underway!  We have entries from NC State, Appalachian and Virginia Tech.  The students are competing for a shot at having their product commercialized at a micro manufacturing facility that we are setting up in Spring Creek, NC.

Click on the image below to see a short video describing the contest.

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“We’re known for our experience in product design and prototyping of metal-based products across a multitude of industries, and these additions to our in-house workshop will enable us serve our clients in a new and valuable way,” said Montie Roland, company president.

Providing design flexibility, rotomolding allows for the creation of prototypes with consistent wall thickness, strength and durability, stress-free parts, and low initial tooling costs. Rotationally molded products are highly sought-after in a wide range of industries such as agricultural and industrial; material-handling; and recreational and sporting goods.

Montie Design has just completed its first rotationally molded prototype for an anti-fog device used in snowmobile helmets. The parts were recently sent off for client testing and evaluation.

“The ability to quickly and inexpensively create prototypes using the rotomolding process opens up new design directions for client projects; there are very few companies in the U.S. that offer rotomolding on a prototype basis. Initially, we embarked on this addition to our services as a way to serve one client, but the lack of vendors that are capable of using the rotomolding process to prototype parts indicates an under-served market,” Roland explained.

The Montie Design toolset offers core competencies in mechanical engineering, industrial design, prototyping and product commercialization. The firm is active in numerous design and engineering groups and organizations throughout North Carolina as well as the North Carolina Defense Business Association.

Additionally, Montie Design is hosting a Winter 2012 Student Design Contest for aspiring product designers in community colleges, four-year colleges, or high schools from North Carolina and Virginia. Contest participants will be tasked with developing outdoor, shooting, hunting, archery, and camping products.

For more information on Montie Design, visit www.montie.com.

About Montie Design
Montie Design is an innovative concept-to-marketplace product design and development firm with core competencies in mechanical engineering and industrial design. Implementing a collaborative approach to partnering with clients, Montie Design balances vision with usability in realizing products that are economical to manufacture, elegant and robust. The firm operates out of the Southeast’s innovation hub, the Research Triangle region of North Carolina, with its wealth of industry-leading technology, resources and customers. For more information, visit www.montie.com.

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“We’ve had tremendous interns at Montie Design through the years, with several coming on board after participating in previous student design contests,” Montie Roland, president of Montie Design, said.

The firm hosted its first design contest in 2011, helping students to build their portfolio and gain invaluable real-world experience working with professional product design engineers.

Contest participants will be tasked with developing products that fit the mold of existing ones in the Montie Gear line of outdoor, shooting, hunting, archery, and camping products. This year’s focus is on gear related to camp cooking, washing or equipment storage and organization. Montie Gear products share the traits of being extremely high quality, high performance, long life and very portable.

In addition to cash prizes of $500 and $250, winning designers will be considered for a summer internship in Spring Creek, N.C., during which time they will help move their design to production and train the local workforce to manufacture their product. Winners will receive a two-year commission on any products that go to market within two years of the submission date, even if they are not a first- or second-place winner.

“One of the unique things we are doing with this particular contest is laying the groundwork for developing manufacturing in the greater Spring Creek area,” Roland said, explaining that Montie Gear products are tested at the nearby Troublesome Gap location, an area he is familiar with.

“I grew up around Asheville, and met fantastic people from Marshall, Mars Hill and Hot Springs. There is a workforce-in-waiting there that we’d like to help bring some business to,” he said.

Roland, who recently participated in a manufacturing roundtable sponsored by Capital Area Workforce Development Board, has continually hosted educational Lunch and Learns at Montie Design to share best practices in product design and engineering and regularly speaks at product design events throughout North Carolina. He is also an officer in the Carolinas Chapter of the IDSA.

For information on the Winter 2012 Student Design Contest, visit www.montie.com/contest or email montie@montie.com. To learn more about Montie Gear visit www.montiegear.com.

About Montie Design
Montie Design is an innovative concept-to-marketplace product design and development firm with core competencies in mechanical engineering and industrial design. Implementing a collaborative approach to partnering with clients, Montie Design balances vision with usability in realizing products that are economical to manufacture, elegant and robust. The firm operates out of the Southeast’s innovation hub, the Research Triangle region of North Carolina, with its wealth of industry-leading technology, resources and customers. For more information, visit www.montie.com.

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Merry Christmas from all of us at Montie Design!  I hope you have a joyous Christmas and enjoy the holiday season.

Innovation vs. Invention – Case In Point

“Innovation” is an often misused term.  Simply put, innovation is where you combine existing intellectual property (or know how) in a new and creative way.  Invention is where you create new intellectual property.

There is an awesome video of a new product that has achieved viral status on YouTube.  You can watch the video here.  This device (called a Fly Board) allows the user to fly like Iron Man for a few feet into the air.

Water is pumped from an impeller (same as impeller on a Jet Ski) through a hose and then ejected from four nozzles to propel the user through the air.

Is this an example of invention or innovation?  There are many examples of using nozzles to eject water in a high velocity stream (think fire hose).  Water is often piped through flexible hoses (think fire hose again).  This product is an example of innovation because existing technologies from fire hoses were combined with using a personal watercraft as a remote power source.  This is a great example of cross pollination because technologies from different industries were innovatively combined to create a new product.  On a personal note, I want to try this new product.  But, I’m pretty sure I won’t be thinking about product development terminology as I’m flying through the air.

Want to talk product development or need help with a project?  Don’t hesitate to contact me at 919-481-1845 x107 or montie@montie.com.

Merry Christmas,
Montie

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Available in silver and black, the slingshot has a 16 pound pull weight at approximately a 28″ draw. The band has a tapered shape and is made from a Thera-Band Gold material for a fast shot and long life. The handle is wrapped with 550 test weight paracord for comfort which can be used for other purposes should a very strong cord be needed in the field. The Montie Gear slingshot is easy to use for men, women, and teens with proper adult supervision.

The lightweight slingshot joins other products in the Montie Gear outdoor catalog including a multi-purpose tree hook archery rest for sturdy support of a bow, crossbow, or rifle with a sling; a camp rack designed to hold pots, lids, serving bowls and utensils off the ground to dry after cleaning; and the popular X-Rest and AR-Rest shooting supports for hunters and recreational shooters.

All equipment in the Montie Gear line is heirloom quality, Troublesome Gap tough. Located near the peak of Hap Mountain overlooking Spring Creek, North Carolina, Troublesome Gap is a rugged mountain area where Montie Gear prototypes are tested and evaluated.

To order Montie Gear products online, visit www.montiegear.com or look for the Montie Gear store on Amazon.com.

About Montie Design
Montie Design is an innovative concept-to-marketplace product design and development firm with core competencies in mechanical engineering and industrial design. Implementing a collaborative approach to partnering with clients, Montie Design balances vision with usability in realizing products that are economical to manufacture, elegant and robust. The firm operates out of the Southeast’s innovation hub, the Research Triangle region of North Carolina, with its wealth of industry-leading technology, resources and customers. For more information, visit www.montie.com.

About Montie Gear
Our philosophy for Montie Gear products is pretty straight forward.  We provide Heirloom Quality Products That are Troublesome Gap Tough. Many products in today’s world are meant to have a limited life time. A good example is that cell phone that you need to replace every two years. It works great, but over time technology changes and the fragile electronics have a limited lifetime. We want to design and sell products that have a very long lifetime and may actually get passed along to your kids or grandchildren. Many rifles get passed along from parent to children, sometimes marking a rite of passage. Granted a shooting rest isn’t as special as your Grandfather’s rifle; however, we work to design and sell products that are simple, elegant and high enough quality that you will want to pass them along to your kids or grandchildren. For more information, visit www.montiegear.com.

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Paul Tome with EPEC Technologies  joined us for a lunch and learn event on Tuesday, Nov 15th.  He lead a discussion called the “Secrets of Flex Circuit Design”.  Paul has 15 years of experience designing flex circuits.  Paul is the Flex Circuit Product Manager for Epec Engineered Technologies (www.epectec.com).

IDSA Southern Regional Portfolio Review at VT

Last weekend was a lot of fun.  The industrial design students in our region have an amazing amount of energy and talent.  It was an honor to serve as a professional reviewer at the event.

PCB Carolina Show in Raleigh

The PCB Carolina show was held on Tuesday at the Raleigh Convention Center.  The convention center is an awesome venue for this type of event.  Shows like this are a great way to meet new clients and catch up with existing clients and friends.  You may be wondering why a mechanical design firm would exhibit at a show focused on PCB design and manufacturing.  All those printed circuit boards have to end up in some sort of enclosure (hint – think Montie Design).

DEFNET Event in Raleigh

Last night the folks at Wake County Economic Development put on the 3rd DEFNET event.  These events are designed to enable networking between the local companies that do work in the defense market space.  This event included a short speech by David Price.  Sign up for the event announcements by emailing Wayne Watkins.

Congressman Price speaking at the Wake County Economic Development DEFNET Event.

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With 15 years of experience design flex circuits, Tome is the Flex Circuit Product Manager for Epec Engineered Technologies (www.epectec.com). Epec is one of North America’s leading PCB and built-to-print product companies and has built one of the industry’s leading global supply chain and engineering platforms.

This Tuesday’s Lunch and Learn continues a series which kicked-off in January with a well-attended event featuring a presentation by Barry Cox of Wyle Labs called “Alphabet Soup: The Acronyms and Steps of Military Contracting.” Cox shared important insights related to the military marketspace.

More recently, Montie Design participated in the North Carolina Defense Business Association (NCDBA) Breakfast with a Prime event as one of the presenting companies and published a free podcast, “Designing Within Aesthetics” which is available by emailing podcast@montie.com.

Earlier in 2011 Montie Design sponsored a student design contest, with participant Nick Pennington submitting a winning slingshot design. The firm liked his design so much that he was invited to serve as a summer intern at Montie Design and commercialize his design, with Pennington managing to successfully complete two versions of his design. The first version is available for sale on the Montie Gear website at www.montiegear.com.

For more information on Montie Design, visit www.montie.com.

About Montie Design
Montie Design is an innovative concept-to-marketplace product design and development firm with core competencies in mechanical engineering and industrial design. Implementing a collaborative approach to partnering with clients, Montie Design balances vision with usability in realizing products that are economical to manufacture, elegant and robust. The firm operates out of the Southeast’s innovation hub, the Research Triangle region of North Carolina, with its wealth of industry-leading technology, resources and customers. For more information, visit www.montie.com.

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We don’t have a prototype to show you yet but the document below helps explain where we are headed with the design.

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"Y" fork Version

Gloveshot Version

"Y" fork frame as it comes off the waterjet

Rob, our machinist, putting the finishing touches on the gloveshot cross member

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Mason Assembling the New Conference Table that He Designed

 

Bottom Section Assembled, Upper Truss is Next

Closeup of the Joinery

Table is Made of Aluminum Plates for a High Tech Look

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“It was great to have an NCDBA event in RTP and see such a large turnout. Most of the organization’s events in the Fayetteville area have 30 to 50 percent of the attendees drive to the event from Raleigh,” said Montie Roland, president of Montie Design, adding, “It really goes to show how active the defense industry is in the Research Triangle area.”

The NCDBA is a state association comprised of members from locations such as Greensboro, Wilmington, Cary, Raleigh, Sanford, Fayetteville, Southern Pines, Pinehurst, Durham, and Matthews with interests in military contracting, government affairs, and supporting the state’s military installations.

During his presentation, Roland gave an overview of Montie Design and its core competencies in mechanical engineering, industrial design, prototyping, and product commercialization, and explained why his job is so interesting, giving an example of driving to the rifle range to test a rifle accessory while at the same time scheduling testing of a baby stroller concept that his company built for a client.

Montie Design is active in the NCDBA, from presenting at Breakfast with a Prime events to exhibiting at the organization’s inaugural Symposium and Exposition this past April in Pinehurst.

Roland said his firm has plans to keep the regional networking going, both within the defense business industry as well as in other market sectors, via an upcoming Final Friday event at the Montie Design headquarters in Morrisville. These annual end-of-quarter events draw C-level executives as well as engineers and industrial designers to share best practices and chat with peers over refreshments in a relaxed atmosphere.

The Q3 2011 Final Friday event is scheduled for 4-6:30 p.m. on September 30th at 100 Dominion Drive, Suite 101, just off Aviation Parkway. To register, visit http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1735503939 or email montie@montie.com.

For more information on Montie Design, visit www.montie.com.

About Montie Design
Montie Design is an innovative concept-to-marketplace product design and development firm with core competencies in mechanical engineering and industrial design. Implementing a collaborative approach to partnering with clients, Montie Design balances vision with usability in realizing products that are economical to manufacture, elegant and robust. The firm operates out of the Southeast’s innovation hub, the Research Triangle region of North Carolina, with its wealth of industry-leading technology, resources and customers. For more information, visit www.montie.com.

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