Since founding Cobalt, we’ve worked on a huge number and variety of amazing design projects.
So along the way we’ve also amassed a heap of metrics which, in their own way, give an insight into the design process and our approach to product development.
At Cobalt believe that knowledge is vital for excellence and evaluation is critical to improvement. The backbone and central-nervous system of Cobalt’s project and company information resides within our custom database system, Lynx. Within Lynx every number, fact and byte of operational information is stored, and each bit of these can be accessed and analysed in moments.
So what started off as a proper analysis a couple of months ago, has been added to by pulling together some of the more quirky statistics we’ve collected over our first 22 years of design practice. So, if you’re into numbers here are many to enjoy! And for the rest, we hope you have a giggle at some of the more amusing facts we’ve pulled out.
Leadership
- Number of Principals: 3
- Principal/Director changes since foundation: 0
- Period that Cobalt’s Principals studied Industrial Design together at RMIT University: 1983 to 1987
Project Experience
- Projects since 1996: 1200+
- Years of combined product development experience across all staff: 218
- Number of individual moulded, tooled or manufactured parts designed by Cobalt that were commissioned for production last calendar year: 294
- Average number of proposed stages per year: 392
- Average number of client projects actively operating at any one time: 29
- Total number of clients since 1996: 476
Records & Recognition
- Design awards and industry prizes won or awarded: 30+
- Net Promoter Score (2012 survey): 65
- Highest production volume design: 8,000,000+ KeepCups
- Cobalt designed the product which has been in longest continuous production – the Icon (Nylex) 35L Slide Top Bin): 1996
Serious Processes & Facilities
- Individual timesheet records across all staff last calendar year: 9565
- Typical ratio of tasks in a full new product development (NPD) project:
- Design and Insights: 26%
- Engineering and CDP+Alpha prototypes: 46%
- Resolution: 17%
- Transfer to Production and Beta prototypes: 7%
- Marketing Support (Animation): 5%
- Dollars invested in Cobalt’s prototyping workshop since 2016: $200,000
- Metres of 3D-Printing filament used inhouse annually: 5000+
- Hours spent on staff training last calendar year: 2035
Global Focus
- Proportion of international clients versus Australian clients: 30:70 approx
- Average number of countries Cobalt crew have lived or travelled in: 12
- Days Cobalt staff were on site with global suppliers in Asia, 2017: 53
Connected Teamwork
- Average age of Cobalt’s team members: 34
- Percent of tertiary educated consulting staff: 100%
- Languages in addition to English, spoken by Cobalt team members: 6
- Percent of Cobalt staff who regularly walk, ride or public-transport to work: 63%
- Total annual meals enjoyed by Cobalt crew at Friday pub lunches: 411
- Careers supported through internships with Swinburne/other universities: 15
