Easy to retrofit, fire suppression system
SUMMARY
Yusuf Muhammad: Co- Founder of Plumis, Inventor of Automist
Yusuf applied to the RCA’s Innovation Design Engineering course after studying an Engineering Degree at Nottingham University. He explains “It was the course I had been looking for my whole educational career as it finally gave me a way to apply my engineering skills to solve real-world problems. There they encouraged me to follow my own curiosity and work on projects that I found inspiring. An 1851 Industrial Design Studentship supported me financially during my two years of full-time study, I do not know what I would have done without it.”
Yusuf’s final year group project was a fire safety system called Automist, an easy to install fire sprinkler system which uses 10x time less water. It came about off the back of talking to firefighters, who highlighted the need for more ways to protect vulnerable people in their homes. Automist went on to win the James Dyson Award in 2009 and subsequently, Yusuf and his team formed a company called Plumis to commercialise it. They now employee over 44 people in London and manufacture our product here in the UK. Plumis recently won Make UK Manufacturing Awards Innovation Winner 2020, all off the back deciding to join the course all those years ago.
by Yusuf Muhammad
Co- Founder of Plumis, Inventor of Automist
Applying Empathetic Engineering Principles
Developing Automist required a deep understanding into the complex world of fire safety and management, with many different stakeholders from local authorities, regulators, manufacturers, architects and engineers who specify them, as well as the companies that design, manufacture and distribute these systems, install them and operate them, and those that insure buildings too. Understanding the interplay between stakeholders, their individual as well as collective needs, the needs of the people they were designed to protect was crucial. Being inspired to make an impact in the field of human safety was crucial and knowing where to intervene in the system to get the maximum leverage meant understanding both hard and soft systems, and creating not only a great product, service system, but also the right business model.
