Product Development

New Product Development activity aim to start from idea and to turn this idea into real product in the shortest possible time to market. Most of our customers use New Product Development activity to extand their product range, to adress new market or to protect themselves against the competition by proposing new innovative products.

Product Development vs On the Shelf Product Picking

New product development differentiate intself from simple sourcing and procurement activities by the fact that the product being developped still doesn’t exist on the market. Going trough New Product Development Process involve a whole flow of activity going from product idea brainstorming trough design, engineering, prototyping and manufacturing. This full process is time consumming, require a high level of skills and capabilities, a decent level of funding and a resilience to micro failure due to usual repeated prototype making which are never perfect from the first scratch.

By opposition, sourcing and buying product on the shelf to a manufacturer while just marking them with a logo require very little effort, very little risk and a time to market extremly quick. Drawback, you get the same product than your competitor, so you can not differentiate….

How do we perform Product Development

New product development include a succession of activities which are usually interelated to each other requiring a wide range of skills. Depending on the nature of the considered product, different engineering skills might be required or not. Most of time, Product Design also called Conceptual Design and Mechanical Engineering are too activities required in 99% of projects dealt with. Other engineering field can be added up based on product type: electronic, electrical, thermiq, fluidiq etc…

Typical flow (here for an electronic product) is given below

Product development activities encompass a succession of activities including Feasibility Studies, Conceptual Design, Engineering, Prototyping, Testing and Certification. Each of them have a direct influence on the other one.

Typical steps and milestones:

PHASE 1: FEASIBILITY STUDY

This phase quite often neglected by many project owners is actually not only a crucial phase in New Product Development flow but also a very usefull one. Indeed, the Technical Feasibility Study and Cost Analysis is actually usefull for:

• • • • • Fundraising: it helps to convince investors that product can be developped and manufactured while highlighting risks and challenges

• • • • • Engineering: it should be the starting point of any engineering phase and should help the project owner to adjust product requirement and specifications based on capabilities and financial considerations

• • • • • Anticipating future technical, certification and manufacturing issues and bottleneck

• • • • • Estimate with accuracy product price point while establishing bill of material cost in detail

• • • • • Establishing state of the art for a product and know where is the competition and how the market is structured

• • • • • Deciding if you better start designing your product from scratch or if you should better use an existing product and to adapt it

• • • • • Establish wether the technology needed for making your product is available and if its cost fall in your budget and product target price or not

• • • • • Analyzing product competition by establishing reverse engineering

• • • • • Establishing leverage possibility for price reduction while not affecting quality

You can consider the Technical Feasibility Study & Cost Analysis to works like an insurance face to engaging into costly design, engineering, prototyping, certification and tooling activities.

PHASE 2: PRODUCT DESIGN

Activities included in this phase are the following

• • • • • Market research

• • • • • Ideas brainstorming

• • • • • Concept sketching

• • • • • 3D rendering

• • • • • Material research

• • • • • Engineering, Certification & Manufacturing compatibility

• • • • • Documentation

PHASE 3: ENGINEERING, PROTOTYPING & TESTING

Activities included in this phase are part of all of the following

• • • • • Mechanical Engineering
          • • • • • Material selection
          • • • • • Part & Supplier Sourcing
          • • • • • 3D Part Design
          • • • • • 3D Assembly Design
          • • • • • Simulation
          • • • • • Prototype Testing
          • • • • • Documentation
          • • • • • Mechanical Prototyping
                    • • • • • Material procurement
                    • • • • • Machining
          • • • • • Mechanical Prototype Testing & Refinement
                    • • • • • Part resistance
                    • • • • • Assembly & Margin gap
                    • • • • • Aging

• • • • • Electronic Engineering
          • • • • • Architecture block diagram
          • • • • • Part & Supplier Sourcing
          • • • • • Schematic
          • • • • • PCB Layout
          • • • • • Simulation
          • • • • • 3D PCB Design
          • • • • • Prototype Testing
          • • • • • Documentation
          • • • • • Electronic Prototype
                    • • • • • Component procurement
                    • • • • • PCB making
                    • • • • • PCBA making

• • • • • Embedded Software Programming
          • • • • • Specification requirement via state diagram
          • • • • • Main functions
          • • • • • Power optimization
          • • • • • UI

• • • • • Mobile App / Software Development
          • • • • • Main function
          • • • • • UI

PHASE 4: CERTIFICATION

• • • • • Lab testing manegement

• • • • • Necessary corrections

Pricing

Product Development pricing depends on the following factors:

• • • • • Which brick of the process has to be handled by our team

• • • • • Product complexity

• • • • • Which type of skills are required to achieve the product development process