1 (770) 807-7223By Jamie Ward
Staff Writer
LAWRENCEVILLE - The Slingshot Product Development Group knows all about innovation because designing new products for the marketplace is what the company does.
Whether it be a consumer product, a medical device or a military one, lead design engineer Joseph Pruitt has worked with them all at the various stages of a product's initial life cycle.
"From art to part to cart," said the company's marketing manager, Akilah Grant.
Now, Pruitt's co-authored a book that has been published by an international company that specializes in high-quality research publications in the fields of information science, technology and management.
Titled "The Handbook of Research on Computational Arts and Creative Informatics," the book will mainly be used in academic circles, but should also have an audience with researchers and futurists, Pruitt said.
It retails on Amazon.com for $265.
Grant said the 8-year-old company is proud of Pruitt's authoring credit.
"This does not happen often," Grant said, noting that most employees who've been published have appeared in magazines or trade journals.
The company's CEO Sam Zaidspiner and its startup division director Don Muntner said Pruitt possesses "a rare talent of finding common ground between the physical laws of science and the randomness of the human mind that is essential for successful product development innovation."
In laymen's terms, "It means that creating new products for consumer human interaction requires more than just engineering and science," Grant said. "Joseph understands the consumer must enjoy the experience of using the product, not just the features. ... He makes great products."
And that's what the book is about on a very high level, how to manage creativity within the bounds of engineering, from both the perspective of the industrial designer who focuses on interaction between people and their products, and the engineer who focuses on the scientific side of product design.
"Both the product engineer and the industrial designer are vital to successfully creating products," Pruitt said. "Both must work together in harmony to be successful, and that harmony is the intersection between art and science."
Slingshot is one of the Southeast's leading product design and development organizations. The company's development teams utilize unique and proven strategies to rapidly launch products for clients in a variety of industries, including consumer products, medical, electronics, military/security, automotive, aerospace, toys, and other categories. Slingshot has developed products with dozens of corporate clients including The Coca-Cola Company, Plantronics, Conair, Kimberly Clark, CharBroil and Lockheed, as well as with innovation-based start-ups.
The company offers a full range of product development services including ideation, conceptual design, prototyping, engineering, design for manufacture, packaging and program management. Additionally, sourcing and manufacturer coordination services are offered through Slingshot's Asia office near Shanghai, China.
Slingshot Product Development Group was founded in 2001 by Sam Zaidspiner, President; George Hatzilias, Vice President of Engineering; and Noah McNeely, Vice President of Design.
