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For most, but
not all projects, we typical follow a process similar to the
one listed below. This is a general outline of
getting a product idea from concept to market. It is a time tested
formula and used in many companies across many industries. There are
several variants of this formula, all of them are good as they fit
different situations and types of product development. Oftentimes, we
have experienced clients that come to us who are already partly through
this process and looking for us to complete it. This is something we
are also happy to do. Below is the process broken into the phases we
normally use.
Concept
Phase
This is the
initial phase where the
idea for the new product is generated and documented. The idea here
is to flush out the idea as much as possible and assess if it
is worth
pursuing. To some degree, this is always done by an inventor or
client before coming to us, for why else would someone hire a product
design and development company unless they already have an idea they
want to
pursue.
Discovery
Phase
This is an
added phase in our process
where a customer shares their idea with us so we can bid on it. It's
common practice to sign a non-disclosure agreement up front with the
customer to keep what is discussed confidential (keeping a customer's
information confidential is something we do even without the
agreement in place, unless agreed to by the customer). We also work
with the customer to flush out the idea, this usually stems naturally
from our need to have a a good specification to create our quote and
this process can range from a short phone call for a simple design to
a couple of weeks of talks if the design is complicated or requires a
lot of detail. We do not charge for this. At the end of this phase
we usually deliver a proposal to the customer with a firm quote for
the preliminary phase and estimates for the other phases beyond that.
Preliminary
Design Phase
In this phase,
we create a preliminary
design based on the specifications agreed upon in the discovery
phase. We create an engineering model and do any other engineering
and design that is necessary to flush out the product so that there
is a high level of confidence that the design will work before
proceeding to detailing the parts and creating engineering drawings
and documents.
This phase is
really where the bulk of
the product design & development is done. At the end of this
phase the work is summarized and delivered to the customer at a
Preliminary Design Review (PDR). A written report is also delivered
detailing the work done in this phase. After this phase, it should
be very clear to all parties what the final product will look like
and what its features will be. If, after the review, the customer
believes parts of the design need to be tweaked or they decide they
want modification or new features added this will be incorporated into
the next phase. Mechanical Engineering Professionals, will then
update the original proposal and give a firm quote to our customers for
the next phase before proceeding.
Critical
Design Phase
Most of this
phase is for detailing the
design and creating engineering drawings and documents of the design
presented at the Preliminary Design Review. Any changes or
modifications to the design requested by the customer at the
Preliminary Design Review are also incorporated before drawings are
made. Once drawings and necessary documents are completed, these are
sent out to manufacting houses for quote so that the customer will
have a detailed price for the building of the product. We are happy to
work with manufacturers specified by the customer if they
have a
particular vendor that they prefer. At the end of this phase the work
is summarized and
delivered to the customer at a Critical Design Review (CDR). A
written report is also delivered detailing everything done in this
phase. Again, at the end of this phase we will update the proposal
and give firm costs for the next phase before proceeding.
Build
Phase
In this phase,
all the parts for the
assembly are ordered, received and the product is assembled. Any
kinks in the assembly process are ironed out and debugged. Bugs are
sometimes surprising to many people who are new to product
development because most
people hear about software bugs but rarely do people hear about it
being associated with mechanical or other types of projects. Most
often, these are trivial and come from all sorts of areas such
as a part just not being made correctly or a press fit being too tight
etc. Overcoming bugs is large part of development and the
reason why most major companies will do several revisions of a design
before releasing a product to the public (alpha, beta, and release
designs);
especially those companies wishing to release high quality products.
There should always be a buffer in an initial build of a product to
allow for debugging during the build. Also in this phase, the
initial manufacturing procedures are worked out and any necessary
manufacturing documentation is created. Higher end or higher volume
assemblies may also require specialty tools to do such things as fine
alignments or to just speed up the assembly process. This would also be
addressed here. At the end of this phase, fully built prototypes
would be delivered to the customer.
Testing
Phase
On simple
projects this phase is often
wrapped in with the build phase and we always do some testing of a
product in the build phase before shipping a prototype to a
customer. The testing can be as simple as "does it work or not?" but
with more intricate assemblies this can become much more
complicated as you are not just testing if it works but how well or how
long it works. Tests vary tremendously on the type of product and
level of quality the customer wants to achieve. These can also
involve market research testing to see how well the product would be
received. We work hand in hand with many customers on this phase as
they usually want to be intimately involved in the testing to see for
themselves how well the product works. Many times the customer takes
over this phase completely. The amount of testing is most often
limited by time and budget constraints.
Beta
Build Phase / Release Build Phase
Often the
product development cycle
listed above is repeated several times mainly to iron out bugs or fix
problems that were discovered in testing. The beta and release
phases aren't really phases so much as a shortened iteration of the
entire product development cycle. Of course, in the beta and
release, the design and build phases are much cheaper and quicker to
complete since one is building on a design already created instead
of starting from scratch. The goal of the beta phase is usually to
create a short run of prototypes that are as close to release as
possible and get them into the hands of key testers, select customers
or others to do some final testing before a full product launch. The
release build phase is usually just to get the final bugs out of the
design as production is ramped up for the initial product launch.
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