Jay Beever, vice president of interior design for Embraer Executive Jets, joined the company in 2012 from Gulfstream and has been instrumental in shaping the interiors of the new Legacy 450 and 500 and the interior refreshes of the Phenom 100 and 300. Before Gulfstream he designed concept cars for Ford, and he takes inspiration from race cars, movies and science fiction. Beever runs both Embraer's customer design and support center and the industrial design studio inside its engineering technical center at the company's sprawling Melbourne, Fla., campus.
Beever adheres to a customer-centric design philosophy. “It's ergonomics first, craftsmanship second then design,” he explained. “Design is subjective. If the customer feels like they have designed their airplane, then it is elegant and we all win. If the customer feels like the ego of the designer took over and he got an airplane that is the designer’s expression and it just doesn't work for him, then we all lose.”
To that end, Beever and his colleagues have created a hands-on design experience for the customer ordering a new airplane. It begins with iPad configurator tools that customers can download at home, according to Frank Chavez, Embraer’s manager of customer support and design. Chavez is part of a nine-person team that helps customers spec their aircraft at the Melbourne customer center, what Beever jokingly refers to as “the realm of emotional compromise.”
Before customers arrive, sales representatives show them how to work the configurator (for all models except the Lineage as that is a custom interior). It starts with a digital walk-through of the aircraft, then the buyer can change layouts, fabrics, materials and colors. Chavez said the company started using the tool two years ago and it has been a great success; 90 percent of buyers define their interiors in one visit, and that visit lasts less than two to three hours. More than 50 percent of customers use the tool before their first visit to Melbourne, and it can also be used to spec exterior paint colors and color schemes.
Embraer’s bold black, silver and blue signature-pattern paint scheme has proven popular with customers as opposed to traditional uniform horizontal pin striping, a pattern that Beever claims is borrowed from Winnebago-brand recreational vehicles. “Airplanes are so elegant and so sexy, and then they disguise them with Winnebago paint schemes,” he said. “Our corporate paint scheme follows the pattern of flow over the airplane.”
Sales reps start showing customers the configurator during demo flights. “We don't want customers just judging the airplane by the demonstrator,” said Beever. “What might be beautiful to one person is not beautiful to another. By having this tool we get them to the airplane that they like, and therefore the demonstrator has not created a subjective opinion. This is the closest thing you can have to virtual reality inside the airplane without putting goggles on somebody's head and making them feel uncomfortable. The idea here is to get them to 90 percent of what they think they like and then start picking materials.”
The configurator and the renderings produced from it also lead to increased customer satisfaction with the end product, he said. “On the color board it may look appropriate, but when customers see the airplane rendered out, that is an important lesson to learn. We don't want them learning that lesson when they take delivery of the airplane. So we get rid of all that discovery up front, so when they walk out they know exactly what they are getting and are happy with it.”
During what can be as much as a year-long lag between spec and delivery, Embraer keeps customers emotionally engaged by delivering them a decorative, high-end wooden box, suitable for cigars or jewelry, that contains elements of their aircraft including veneer, fabric or plating. “It represents the aircraft,” said Beever, “so for the last six months they are excited about it. [We used the box to keep the emotional connection going.”
Beever concerns himself with elements typically outside the purview of an interior design chief. He is passionate about fly-by-wire flight controls, for instance. “Why is fly-by-wire with the sidestick key to cabin comfort? Some owners may say, ‘I don’t care what the pilot has to deal with. I want comfort in the cabin.’ Well digital fly-by-wire is like a stair step, but when you are pulling a yoke it is a Cartesian-like movement: X, Y and Z. You’re never truly linear. The pilot is still flying the reaction. Fly-by-wire takes care of everything the bird is doing without its head moving. Because it’s a stick instead of a yoke it is A to B. You don't have to go through an X, Y, Z Cartesian pull so the ride in the back is even more comfortable. So the stair step is so micro that it actually becomes a ramp. The cabin is actually where you feel that the most,” he explained.
Sitting in the Legacy 450 mockup, Beever stressed that good design means durability, reliability and serviceability. “This is our flagship for technology and aesthetic DNA. When you look around, everything is face-mounted. You feel the edge of the glass–Gorilla glass–it’s finished, it’s polished. That way if this gasper and reading light fail it takes me less than 30 minutes to service, because everything is removable from the face side. Window shades are behind a window decorative panel. The seats don't need to come out for service. So much of this industry is set up around entombed things, like 12 hours to remove a window shade in some airplanes. This is an example of design for assembly and maintainability using automotive geometric dimension and tolerancing. Just like in a car, it’s easy to get to the fuse panel, to the glove box, easy to do all these things.” Beever also explained how the new midsize Legacys use a unique floating-gap method of attaching trim panels.
At Embraer's Engineering and Technology Center in Melbourne, Beever runs a small industrial design team that, among other things, recently conceived the components for the Phenom 100 ACE (Aircraft Customization by Embraer) program. Beever credits the Singer Porsche 911 as his inspiration for the project. The Singer is lighter than the original and performs better. Likewise, the Phenom ACE shaves more than 80 pounds from the cabin and features hip styling, more comfortable seating and improved cabinetry.
“You can save weight with industrial design,” said Beever. “This is our entry into the customization world of service center interior refurbishment that Embraer hasn't had because we are 10 years young in executive jets. Customers are now at that maturity point where they need something fresh in their interiors. Now we are starting to set up this type of access. Right now only Embraer's Fort Lauderdale service center is installing the ACE interior but Beever thinks that any interior shop should be able to install it within a year.
