An new product development (NPD) project is a risky and likely expensive undertaking. Much of an NPD is about developing a concept and then engineering it through an iterative prototyping process into a functional product. But it also has everything to do with managing the project as a whole, which inevitably involves issues like IP protection, right-to-repair legislation, and NDAs. Cad Crowd helps you connect with experienced NPD professionals to help you run both the engineering and managerial sides of the project, making the otherwise challenging endeavor into a seamless undertaking from the get-go at affordable rates.
Development tips
Effective product concept development requires a good combination of detailed engineering work and a focus on running the project efficiently. There are many strategies to achieve both, the chief of which are listed below.
Take a look around
Only when you truly understand the problem can you devise an effective solution. New product design services must be driven by the need to provide a solution to an ongoing problem, the kind of problem that the existing products in the market cannot seem to solve. Somebody invented Bluetooth because people hated wire clutter; we have ATMs, so nobody has to stand in a queue for hours to withdraw money from their bank account; you buy a treadmill so you can jog inside an air-conditioned room when it’s raining outside; people use electronic calculators to save on scratch paper, and so forth. Necessity is the mother of invention.
To know exactly what necessity to address, you need to get out there, talk to people, and watch them do the things your product is supposed to help with. Do they misplace their keys far too often? Are their umbrellas good enough? Do they find their backpacks have too few compartments? Is there any feature they hate the most in a kitchen appliance? You get the idea. Ask as many questions as you can muster and take note of every answer. If you’re developing a new digital watch, for instance, don’t just ask if they want one. Try to get a little bit more details about their preferred functions, size, material, strap, display/legibility, water resistance, color, etc. The more people you encounter, the more data you get.
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Market research like this offers a glimpse into what your target buyers want and need, which features they can do without, and how much they are willing to pay for the product when it’s available. Of course, it makes no sense to interview thousands of people in a direct face-to-face setting, and that is where social media comes in. The data acts as preliminary insight into what your next product should be. It’s a rough guideline, but a guideline nonetheless.
Never mind the ugly prototype
Ugliness, believe it or not, is the hallmark of the first prototype, also commonly referred to as Proof of Concept (PoC). If it looks good or even remotely pleasing, chances are you’ve spent way too much time, money, and effort on it. No matter what product you’re prototyping, the PoC is exactly what it says: a rather simple object to demonstrate that your idea can and will work. How simple should it be? We’re talking about cardboard, styrofoam, hot glue, plywood, paper, and scrap metal. LEGO is as fancy as a PoC can get. You also won’t be 3D printing or CNC machining anything. A local handyperson is likely more than capable of doing it. Think of PoC as a “Frankenstein” phase of the development, where you put together some random things and off-the-shelf components to showcase an idea.
Aesthetics isn’t a concern yet. The most important thing about a PoC is determining whether the dimension or shape makes sense. Will it be easy to use? Can a human hand comfortably hold the product? Does the lid or the folding mechanism work? Are the buttons and screen (if any) in good positions? Is the dimension too large or too small? And perhaps the most important question of them all: does it have the potential to be an effective solution to the problem it’s supposed to solve?
So long as you’re using affordable and readily available materials, you won’t be too hesitant to experiment with different designs and break things in the process. When one design doesn’t work, use it as a point of reference for the next build. Things might get messy, but that’s a more than reasonable price to pay if you want to learn something as quickly as possible. In any case, it makes more sense to create and discard a design made from a pile of cardboard rather than fail with 3D-printed parts worth hundreds of dollars. When it comes to PoC, be as budget-conscious as you can because you’ll be spending a lot more money right after this phase of development.
Try different materials
The next step is choosing the right materials for the product. Now you get to fully understand why spending too much time and money on proof of concept wouldn’t be so wise after all. At the end of the day, the PoC will mostly serve as a reference point for the next, “more serious” builds. Metals are generally stronger and look better. A metal spoon feels more premium than its plastic counterpart, even when both are food-grade and reusable. Although many products look, feel, and work better when they’re made of metal, it doesn’t mean that plastics (or alternatives like wood, glass, and bamboo) are always bad. For example, most light switches are plastic because it’s a non-conductive material, making it safer for electrical applications.
You can make one from metal, but it’s going to be more expensive, and people might avoid it out of fear of electric shock. You’ll soon realize that the best material isn’t necessarily the strongest or the most aesthetically pleasing of the bunch. Much of it depends on the type of product, its purpose and use cases, design for manufacturability, and, certainly, cost. From a more technical point of view, also consider weight, ease of cleaning and maintenance, heat and moisture resistance, durability, and often eco-friendliness. To help put things into perspective, most handheld GPS devices are made of industrial-grade plastic (rather than metal) for durability.
At the same time, kettles are made of metal, so they can boil water without melting. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking high-grade stainless steel is superior to ABS plastic. There are indeed plenty of cases where the statements are true, but not always. A spanner must be made of metal, given its typical use cases, while a garden hose is most likely made of plastic to keep it lightweight and flexible. The choice of material is always partly determined by how the product is supposed to be used.
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Apply DFM to everything
Plenty of technical considerations can go into DFM services. Think of assembly tolerances, material density, decorative elements, PCB schematics (for electronic products), and standardization. But it all comes down to one key principle: simplification. In other words, make your design as simple as possible. A simple design is easier to fabricate (as a prototype) and mass-produce than a complex one. A component that consists of a few parts is easier to assemble than one with dozens of separate pieces. Not only does it concern manufacturability, but also manufacturing it cost-efficiently.
Here’s the issue: you can design the most complex product imaginable and then build a prototype using a 3D printer or CNC machining, but you might not be able to mass-produce it at a cost you can afford. While 3D printing and CNC machining (additive and subtractive manufacturing methods, respectively) are excellent for prototype fabrication, it would be ridiculously expensive to produce hundreds, if not thousands, of units of a product using such methods. Additive manufacturing is primarily intended for prototyping rather than mass manufacturing.
With the current technology we have, the most efficient mass-production methods are the “formative” injection molding and casting (for metal and plastic materials) and die casting (for metal). Each of these methods has limitations, such as accuracy, tolerance, volume, dimensions, and size. However, both are definitely more cost-efficient than the alternatives for large volume production runs. Every product is unique, so becoming familiar with this formative method is crucial to implementing the DFM approach in your design. No matter what you design, make sure it can be mass-produced at scale.
Fire up the CAD
At some points in the design process, you must step away from gluing cardboard and focus on creating a digital model on the screen. One thing that distinguishes modern from older product development is the heavy use of CAD (computer-aided design). As a matter of fact, you’ll probably spend a good chunk of your time drawing a digital model before you can get back to the real world and build a proper physical prototype again. Advanced CAD software offers a wide range of features and functions that allow you to draw or create digital images identical to real-world objects. While these images can be drawn as a traditional two-dimensional diagram, 3D visualization services is what you want. More than just a pretty image on a screen, every single aspect of the object can be configured to your liking.
You can, for instance, try various materials, textures, finishes, points of articulation, and all the rest of it, including shape and dimension. And if the product is supposed to have an internal mechanism composed of multiple components, 3D CAD allows you to draw each part separately and assemble them into a working system. Among the most popular software include Autodesk Fusion, SOLIDWORKS, Siemens NX, PTC Creo, Blender, and Rhinoceros 3D, to name a few. For electronic products, you’re spoiled with software options like Altum Designer, Proteus, CircuitMaker, and Ansys SIwave. Some of them are actually free and open-source, so generally, there’s no shortage of software tools to get your product development started.
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If there’s one product development tip to rule them all, it would be about taking advantage of virtual simulation firms. Both digital modeling and simulation have become industry standards to test concepts, processes, systems, and, of course, physical products. Simulation works by introducing likely (and sometimes unlikely) use-case environments and scenarios into the digital models. Think of temperature variation, submersion in water, vibration, drops, power cutout, etc. Let the software run the simulation and gather the data accordingly. It wouldn’t be entirely inaccurate to liken product simulation to a video game. And if you have to make changes to the test variables or perhaps the design itself, you can do any of that almost immediately on the screen.
One thing to remember about simulation is that the result is only accurate if the digital model is identical to the physical object down to the smallest details, such as material thickness, assembly tolerances, internal mechanisms, and PCB specifications. The idea behind digital modeling and simulation is to avoid spending too many resources on physical prototypes. A digital model is also a prototype, a virtual one at least, to give a glimpse at what the physical product will look like and how it should perform.
More importantly, you can modify the virtual prototype and adjust everything without wasting raw materials. Even when the design fails in a simulation, for example, because of poor heat management or parasitic drain, nothing is really lost. All the data is still there inside the computer to help you prevent the same mistakes in the next attempt. If you want, you can just start over and build a new model.
Consider the ergonomics
If not for ergonomics, it might be possible for the prototype design expert to do the entire prototyping sequence on a computer screen and save a whole lot of money. But no, there will come a time when you have to step away from the computer and start making a physical prototype. The good thing is that there will be fewer mistakes now because much of the design work has been ironed out during the digital modeling and simulation phases. An NPD project always has to involve a physical prototype to confirm if the design works as intended in the real world.
Depending on the materials used, prototype fabrication is typically done using a 3D printer, CNC machining, or both. It’s no longer a PoC; the dimension, form factor, materials, and features are much closer to being the final production version. You need this prototype to be of relatively good quality for one important reason: ergonomic testing, which, unfortunately, is quite impossible to do using the virtual prototype. A perfectly functional product is great, but sometimes that’s not enough. It also has to be easy to use and comfortable. Your product needs to be ergonomic.
Suppose your new product is a piece of furniture, say a chair. What’s the point of making a durable and intricately decorative chair if it’s not comfortable to sit on? It may last forever, but if it wiggles about and has sharp edges everywhere, no one will buy it anyway. The same thing applies to other products as well. Handheld devices must be nice to hold, helmets must be comfortable to wear, a kettle needs a heat-resistant, grippy handle, and so forth, while staying perfectly functional. As mentioned earlier, the only way to test comfort and ease of use is with a physical prototype.
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Build maybe half a dozen prototypes to start, run some real-world testing, and keep improving through an iterative process. Don’t hesitate to go back and forth between virtual and physical prototyping phases until you discover the ideal formula that offers a nice balance between functionality and ergonomics.
Breaking the product is part of the process
Every rapid prototyping phase always ends with a physical product. You may spend weeks if not months tinkering with the model and simulation on a computer, but all that hard work will always conclude with the fabrication of an actual object that you can touch, hold, use, and yes, break. It’s important to experience the design as a whole to be entirely convinced that it’s good enough for buyers to use.
Once you have a prototype (preferably a high-fidelity and functional one) in your hand, do a real-world test yourself but act as if you’re the most ignorant user. If the product is a chair, don’t just sit on it. Stand and jump on the chair many times. If it’s a handheld device for outdoor use, throw it into a pool or put it in the fridge for an hour or so. If it’s a water bottle, leave it outside under a scorching sun or slam it to the floor. No matter what the product is, just use it like crazy. The point is that when something breaks, as the product designer you’ll be able to determine the points of failure and then do something about it.
Every product must be stress-tested, meaning it must be put under extreme use case scenarios, or situations that most people won’t likely bump into in their typical day-to-day usage of the product. This is what NPD professionals call accelerated testing. It would be similar to pressing a button 100,000 times just to see if it gets stuck, cycling a hinge 200,000 times with an automated motor, or tapping a touchscreen thousands of times every day to replicate years of heavy use.
It won’t feel good to break a product that took you months to develop, but it’s better to see it get crushed during the testing than in the customer’s hands. You have to document everything. At what point does the product become unusable? What is the weakest part or component? Does the battery explode? Does it collect dirt easily? And the most important question: how do all of those happen? Based on the data, get back to the CAD, modify the model, run some more simulations, and finally build another prototype to test again. You will have to do this in a cycle while keeping DFM in mind.
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Make it repairable
Buyers today are more conscious about eco-friendliness and the whole sustainability problem than they used to. The use of recyclable or sustainable materials is good, but customers also want more: they want the product to be durable and repairable. The “right to repair” has recently gained renewed momentum. And as a concept product designer, you’re required by law to respect that. Let’s assume your new product is a toy car. Somebody ends up buying the toy and playing with it every day until one of the wheels comes off. Normally, this person can pop the wheel back on or, if something breaks, buy a replacement part and fix everything without issue, but unfortunately, that’s not the case here.
It turns out that the wheel is fitted with a special screw that is incompatible with a normal screwdriver. Even worse, there’s no replacement wheel available, so it must be sent to an authorized shop for repair, and that’s expensive. Now try to see things from this person’s perspective. It’s infuriating. The right to repair is a set of laws enforced to prevent companies from doing such things. When people buy a product, it becomes theirs solely to use, maintain, repair, and modify. Making the product repairable is part of the sustainability principle, and customers are actually fond of the idea. And if you really think about it, the right to repair goes hand in hand with DFMA (design for manufacturability and assembly) services, especially the simplification part.
As previously discussed, a simple product is easy to assemble, making it cost-efficient to manufacture at scale. And now it has come full circle, because a simple product is also easy to disassemble for self-repair. Just because one part of the product breaks, it doesn’t mean the product becomes completely unusable. The right to repair makes it easy for users to modify, replace components, and attempt repairs without going through the entire process of sending the product to authorized repair centers. One of the most practical ways to achieve this is to use standard parts (fasteners, wires, connectors, batteries, and so on) rather than proprietary ones. Design simplification also helps ensure that users can disassemble and reassemble the product using standard tools.
IP protection matters
If you think you’ve invented something new, whether a unique mechanism or method to solve a problem, you have to protect this intellectual property of yours. It’s a protection against someone else using the idea freely without your permission. Such protection usually means applying for patents. There are two main types: design patents (basically about how the design or idea looks) and utility patents (the mechanism or how the design works). Acquiring a patent, either design or utility, can take several years and is potentially expensive, but necessary to secure the IP, which has now become a business asset. In fact, it might be the only thing stopping anyone from copying your idea and selling it for half the price.
And IP protection goes both ways. Without detailed research into a patent database, you might unknowingly use a mechanism or implement an idea that’s already patented by someone else. You can use tools like Google Patents, WIPO Search, or the USPTO site to do the preliminary research. If your design or mechanism is already patented IP, contact the patent holder for permission (which usually involves a lot of money) or, more realistically, just move on to devise another design.
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There might be situations where you finish the development and must send the design to a factory partner before you get a patent approved. A Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) is a good line of defense here. You can essentially fill it with legally binding clauses that prevent the factory from any unauthorized usage of your product design or idea. In fact, an NDA is important if you have to work with any external party, such as a prototype fabricator, a 3D artist for the CAD work, or freelance engineers and designers. Your concept is more than a physical object; it’s the ideas and thought processes behind it as well.
How Cad Crowd can help
Developing a concept for a physical product is a totally different game from coding software or creating an app. Once the concept is turned into a real-world object and launched to market, you can’t just release a patch to fix bugs or add new features. If the wheels come off, the hinges snap, the button gets stuck, the battery bulges, and the sealing gasket leaks, nothing you can send over the internet will fix the issue. The best you can do is to be fully prepared for it.
Develop a concept for a durable product that is easy to repair with standard tools while keeping production costs low. Easier said than done, of course, and that’s where Cad Crowd comes in. The US-based freelancing platform is home to thousands of product engineers, industrial designers, and NPD professionals of various specializations to help you create product concepts that work and can be prototyped and manufactured in a cost-efficient way. Contact us today for a free quote.
