Getting from a working prototype to mass production is sometimes a complex and tough journey. We help you plan ahead and we take the right steps in the right order.
What you need is:
What we do
We focus on making the product design better and easier to manufacture toward the end of the product design phase.
Depending on the project, we may work on:
Note: if you need us to take care of some of the engineering work, or the industrial design, please let us know. We can probably help.
We reduce the risks of quality defects, project delays, and unexpectedly high costs, and overall we speed up your time to market by following our structured New Product Introduction (NPI) process, and typically includes most of the following:
First, if your product has not been designed for manufacturing, it might simply not be possible to make it in high volume. Some people have come to us, for instance, with a plastic enclosure that can be 3D printed but not injection molded.
Second, depending on the project, a few adjustments to the product design can yield several of the following benefits:
When it comes to certain products, developing the manufacturing and testing processes can be very complex. Our team has experience with many materials, processes, and technologies, and has worked across many product categories. We are not afraid of challenging situations.
We follow a structured New Product Introduction (NPI) process. It is a proven process that experienced manufacturers follow carefully. The project needs to go through pre-defined validations before it goes into the next phase. For example, making sure the product design is validated before cutting steel for tooling, if at all possible. That prevents the very common situation where the project needs to go back to the previous phase for time-consuming rework.
On the other hand, our customers often request exemptions and accept the related risks. In the end, it depends on the project size and on the safety hazards that might arise. A relatively simple and harmless product that does not call for tricky manufacturing processes can be brought into production relatively quickly and effortlessly.
We have seen many factories in China skip the small production runs (pilot runs) for new products. Unfortunately, despite all the efforts at evaluating & mitigating risks “on paper”, some issues will come up when a new product starts to be manufactured. Those issues need to be contained so bad products are not shipped to customers, and any serious issues need to be addressed before large quantities are released on the shop floor.
The tasks outlined will typically be happening between the end of phase 3 (Prototyping), phase 4 (Tooling), phase 5 (Pre-Production), and phase 6 (the first batches of mass production):
