Military Backpack Design: How User Feedback Drives Innovation

Some are, admittedly, and Karrimor SF has been instrumental in some phenomenal developments in load carrying technology. We were early adopters and involved right at the beginning of the development of MOLLE, and we were instrumental in the development and adoption of PLCE as used by British armed forces.

But some innovations are more incremental, the backpacks we supply today being the aggregation of marginal improvements, from designs to materials to component parts - often all connected to feedback that we receive from the military and outdoor professionals who rely on our equipment in the field.

That feedback is where much of the development process starts. A user might identify a component that could be improved, or a detail of a design that could work better in a particular environment. None of these observations necessarily results in a completely new product, but often they form changes as part of the next iteration.

What matters then is what you can do with that feedback. This is where the capabilities of the wider KSFG group become important (KSFG is the company that owns Karrimor SF). Feedback from the field can be translated into a requirement, explored through design and material selection, developed into a prototype and then tested to establish whether the proposed change actually delivers an improvement.

That connection between the user and the people developing and manufacturing the equipment is particularly valuable. The feedback is grounded in real use; the response can draw on expertise in materials, construction, manufacturing and production. A request for a more durable fabric, for example, is not simply a matter of specifying a tougher material. It can involve understanding how that material behaves across the construction of the pack, how it affects weight and performance, how it can be worked in production and whether the resulting change provides a worthwhile benefit.

The finished improvement may be relatively small. A revised fabric, component, construction detail or manufacturing process might not look revolutionary, but collectively these changes can make a significant difference to the equipment that reaches the user.

And that process doesn't really have an end point. As materials develop, manufacturing techniques improve and the requirements of the people using our equipment change, there are always opportunities to refine what we do.

For Karrimor SF, innovation is therefore as much about continual improvement as it is about major breakthroughs. The equipment we develop today benefits from decades of experience, but that experience is not a reason to stand still.

Experience tells us what works, but listening tells us what could work better. Innovation is what connects the two - and that's where we excel.