New Product Concept:

This is the first New Product Development (NPD) step.  It involves brainstorming new product ideas and ways of implementing them.  It sometimes helps to identify a hole in the market or a problem that needs to be solved, then create a way to solve it. Once you’ve identified your concept it’s important to see if your idea is patentable.  For ideas on how to come up with a new product concept, check out our article about developing new product ideas.

Marketing Analysis:

After you have come up with your idea, it is essential to do a market study and analysis.  Good ways to start this are searching the web as well as retail stores for similar and competitive products.  This is what is called “Competitive Shopping” (Comp Shop).  We recommend creating a spreadsheet of products you’d like to compare.  Include their sell price, where they are sold, product image, and a list of key product features.  Once you can compare these products side by side, you can identify what price point you would like to aim for, key product features that need to be included in your product, what makes your product unique, and what retail markets you would sell your product in.  

 

Different markets to consider are “Mass Markets” ie. Wallmart, Target and big box stores, “Online Retailers” ie. Amazon, Jet, and ebay, “Specialty Stores” ie. Dick’s Sporting Goods,”Department Stores”, “Supermarkets”, “Drugstores”, “Discount Stores”, “Restaurants”, and “Boutiques”.  It is important to identify your target market so that you can have a solid marketing strategy.   To read more about conducting market research read this article. 

Industrial Design:

The next stage of the product design and development process is industrial design.  Industrial design takes the functional end-use requirements and brings that together with aesthetic appearance.  It takes into consideration end-user interface, function, color, form, value, and potential materials to be used.  In this stage it is common to develop conceptual sketches and even a concept model or prototype.

Product Engineering:

The product engineering phase is where the meat of your product design and development project will come together.  It takes into account structural concerns, loading calculations, stress calculations, weather concerns, specifying components, and final material selection.  This is the stage of the new product development guide where detailed 3D Computer Aided Drawings (CAD) are made. 

Manufacturing Study: 

The next of the product development steps is Design for Manufacturing (DFM) goes hand in hand with engineering.  It takes the design of the product and optimizes it for price and performance.  The goal of the engineering process is to minimize cost, number of parts, complexity, labor, and shorten production time.

Prototyping:

Scale prototypes are made for evaluating design, performance, manufacturing, and functionality.  They can also be used for marketing, sales, and fund raising.  Auell Consulting, a Denver Prototyping Company, can help you prototype your designs with our in house 3D printers.  To learn more about our prototyping ability’s click here.  To learn more about the importance of prototyping click here.

Design Revisions:

Tooling:

Sourcing, Manufacturing, and Warehousing:

We work with a wide range of factories in the US, China, India, and Mexico and can help to find the right factory to produce your product.  It’s important to find a reliable manufacturing partner to work with to ensure you will have quality products delivered on time. 

Once a manufacturer is selected, it’s time to make tooling and create T1 samples for evaluation.  Once samples have been approved the product can now be released for production.  We offer manufacturing support to our clients to help with any issues that arise during this process.

Marketing:

The next of the product development steps is promoting your product.  This is involves advertising, packaging, website, logos, branding, and bringing your product to the end consumer. 

Product Design Consultant

We hope you enjoyed this new product development guide and we look forward to working with you on your upcoming project.

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