Our goal is to deliver your vision on time and w/o compromise.
• We help you understand the entire scope of work.
• What stage are you at with your project/product?
• What assumptions are you making?
• What regulatory and industry standards do you need to comply with?
• Is your idea viable and marketable?
• Are you ready to take the next step?
• What current or past technologies should you consider?
This saves you time and money. We will only take on your project if we think it will succeed. We won't let you spend your money on our services if we think your goals are unrealistic or your product is not viable. Since we are experts we believe it's our job to help define the requirements and set the expectations to keep you out of trouble. It's an opportunity to see how we work.
Requirements are statements of specific stuff your product must do or a quality it must have. Requirements deal with the “what”, and a the Specifications deal with the “how”. Specifications state how the design will meet your requirements.
How do you define what to design and build? How do we get every product detail right? How do you actually achieve a profit after your product is launched? An important early step is to create a Product Requirements Document (PRD). The PRD forces you to think of critical items BEFORE the product is designed instead of after when it’s too late or too costly to change. Put simply, it sets the foundation that keeps all the disciplines and efforts aligned to produce the right product at the right price and on time.
The PRD contains sections like Desired Consumer Experience (DCE). Appearance /color requirements, Branding/logo/markings, Regulatory Compliance, Timeline, Inventory/forecast requirements. Even retail packaging – Do you need retail packaging or frustration free packaging for your web store or Amazon?
The specifications take each and all of the requirements in the PRD and translates them into measurable characteristics to be used in the design and verification of the product. For example, if the requirement is that the product be rugged, then one specification might be that “the product shall continue to perform all functions, and not experience any permanent failures such as breaks, cracks, etc. after being dropped from a height of 6 ft onto a concrete surface”. Together we will create the many specifications which will make it possible to determine if the product meets all the requirements in the PRD. In other words, specifications make it possible to perform Design Verification Testing (DVT) and Accelerated Life Testing (ALT) Step 5.
Think of a set of specifications as the DNA of the end product.
Imagine you’re at the final design review or worse, it's after tooling or 1st shipment. Then you realize that the product is missing an important functionality or compatibility? The PRD process is an exercise in flushing out all the non-obvious requirements to the surface so they can be part of the design from the start.
We evaluate your project’s potential for success with objectivity. We look at: Technical feasibility - Can your product idea be made using available technology? Cost feasibility – Will the unit cost or development costs be too high to be profitable? Schedule feasibility – What does the product launch date need to be? Is it realistic?
It’s an important process in mitigating risk and avoiding delays. We’ll identify and detail the activities required in each phase of a project. The detailed schedule sets out target dates for completion of tasks within each phase. The timeline is directly correlated to the scope of the project. Small projects may have hundreds of tasks while large projects may have thousands. Many tasks overlap in time or gate the start of others. Project management also helps keep projects on budget. A good project management plan identifies anticipated costs early on to develop a realistic budget. We review the plan and schedule weekly. Recovery plans are immediately implemented for tasks that are off track.
Organizations that use project management to monitor and control processes and schedules can more effectively complete their projects on time and on budget. We keep you informed and involved through weekly status calls and phase completion reviews. Daily schedule reviews drive the on-time start and completion of each task.
A green light on the Product Requirements Document, specifications and schedule means the design phase starts. Our designers and engineers use decades of experience and the leading state of the art 3D solid modeling CAD and FEA to create intelligent concepts and designs.
Oh, and we’ve been manufacturing what we design for decades. That means we understand materials, finishes, and tolerances. It also means we practice Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA). DFMA is the combination of two methodologies; we design parts for ease of manufacture and also ease of assembly into the final product.
We want full control over what is manufactured in the factory so we document the details. Critical characteristics of a part over time, must be preserved throughout the manufacturing process. Detailed part and assembly drawings capture critical dimensions, features, and specifications of a part or assembly. Test procedures and inspection plans further assure that over time, parts continue to meet requirements. And all these documents including drawings, BOM’s and CAD are revision controlled. This makes sure the factory always uses the latest documentation to order the right component, produces the newest version of a part, and use the right materials and colors.
The 10 millionth part and every part in between is as good as the 1st part.
How do you know if the final design actually does everything you wanted? At the beginning you helped write the PRD. Now towards the end we complete Design Verification testing (DVT). We test every function of the product. We also test its durability and reliability. We perform numerous tests to confirm that your product passes all the requirements and specifications contained in the PRD.
If there’s a switch, our machine pushes it thousands of times an hour. If it folds we fold it many more times than it would be folded in the product’s lifetime. It’s called Accelerated Life Testing (ALT). ALT puts your product though a lifetime of normal use in a few weeks. If it fails we determine why, improve the design and re-test
USA, Canada, and European Union countries among many others have product safety regulations. We work with accredited labs to identify what regulations apply to your product. We handle all testing needed to publish the Declaration of Conformity (DoC) and place compliance markings on your product. Examples are FCC, CE.
You'll be launching a reliable product that meets or exceed the expectation of not only the end user, but also meets country regulatory compliance. This leads to your long term success.
During the design phase we review and validate the design. Formally we conduct a preliminary design review (PDR). The most effective way is to review an actual working unit. We do this using prototypes which are fully assembled parts that have full or limited functionality. They’re made using one or more state of the art rapid building processes such as CNC machining or the latest in powerful 3D-printing technologies that include FDM, SLS, or SLA. Parts are made in 2-3 days without the high cost of production tooling.
The final design of your product will be mass produced using high volume production tools and processes which require 6-8 weeks to fabricate or set-up. Prototypes allow us to effectively review the design and make changes quickly as needed before committing to the large cost and time expense of mass production tooling. In addition, making changes to mass production tools is costly and time consuming as well.
It happens in the final stage of product development. The Pilot is a few hours of mass production at near full capacity. It’s a test or trial run of the assembly lines, test stations, molds, packaging and every manufacturing step in between. The Pilot is performed using the actual assembly lines, stations, and molds that will be used in mass production. It helps set quality requirements. It helps identify and optimize bottle neck processes to help reduce cycle times.
The pilot gives you real data about actual production rates, and yields. It gives you the data needed for us/you to determine and commit to ship schedules with confidence. On-time delivery rating is a key metric retailers use to keep or drop your product.
We’ve been manufacturing precision consumer products for some of the biggest brands for over ten years. All with our unique group of partner factories. We have nurtured well-grounded long term relationships with our factory owners, which means your intellectual property is protected. Each is vetted and each has core competencies to match most consumer product needs
Everything from order fulfillment and tracking, to inventory management, testing and on-going product maintenance. With our proven third party logistics (3PL) partner we can offer warehousing, fulfillment, transportation, distribution, and customs consulting. We can bring the product from the factory floor to your location or to the point of consumption and streamline the entire process for you
Frees up your time to allow you to get back to focusing on your area of strength.