Modular design: a featureless future?

Petrol filling stations are highly constrained sites that require specialist ground works for the forecourt. By using an off-site modular design solution for the building, work on site is reduced and there is much less disruption.

Prototypes (and how not to polish a turd)

As designers and brand strategists, we are constantly working with ideas, toying with visual metaphors and facilitating greater knowledge sharing through new technology.

During the initial stages of a design project, our design team will adopt the use of a prototype of one sort or another. Since Minale Tattersfield works across 2D and 3D design, there are a number of different routes and tools available to us in prototype methodology, but usually it is helpful, when I am involved, to scribble some thoughts, and conceptualise an idea, the old analogue ways are often the best.

Caspian lube sketches

Big isn’t always beautiful when implementing a roadside retail design project

When I was the project manager for Shell’s global petrol station re-imaging project in the 1990s one of my key tasks was to work with Shell Brazil where we had nearly four thousand Retail outlets. The Brazilians ran one of the most creative and energetic of Shell’s marketing businesses and they were always keen to embrace new opportunities to enhance their already strong competitive position. So when after a couple of year’s work we had codified the design standards in a comprehensive manual it was with eager anticipation that I flew to Rio de Janeiro to see how the company’s first re-imaged site looked.

In-house or Outsourced Project Management?

If outsourcing’s prime function is to increase efficiency by enabling a business to focus on core competence then it would be clear why a food business may for example outsource the management of constructing their restaurants / stores. By the same token if an oil company is at its core, an organisation that manages and invests in sophisticated physical assets and processes then why would the construction of filling stations be outsourced as it is surely a core competence?

The fact that filling stations are customer facing and refining /extraction are business to business should not make any difference. It may also be said that retail may comprise just a small fraction of an oil companies revenues but surely the managing of an up to $400-700 million per annum budget to build and refurbish sites is a significant investment by anyone’s standards, especially when the retail outlets in question are the most visible manifestation of the brand.

Sir Terry Leahy's Environmental Credentials

Sir Terry Leahy, environmentalist extraordinaire or tough CEO of a global fortune 500 company driven by increasing shareholder value? Listen to Sir Terry's speech at the Politics of Climate Change Conference ahead of the Copenhagen Earth summit in Nov 09 you may think the former option. Look at Sir Terry's track record at managing cost at Tesco you would think the second.