DEFINING PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT GOALS

Market Analysis
We’ll conduct an in-depth, independent review and analysis of all the factors below — followed by an executive summary detailing our findings and conclusions. Together, we’ll then develop a product strategy calculated to meet both specific objectives and measurable goals.

—Your historical and current competitive niche
—Current and emerging market opportunities
—Your competition
—Your vision for the project at hand
—Market needs the project should fulfill, general and specific

Customer Activism
Every product succeeds to the extent that it meets real customer needs. Which is why we strongly recommend involving key customers as early as possible in any product development process. Collectively contributing to both the functionality and feel of a product you’re creating gives your customers a genuine sense of ownership in its success. It builds not only brand loyalty, but brand advocacy — which is increasingly important in today’s consumer-driven marketplace.

FORMING AND LEADING COLLABORATIVE GROUPS

We never work in a vacuum. Which is why we place a premium on collaboration with your team. Working from concept to distribution with your development team (as well as your key customers and dealers), we’ll uncover the challenges you’re likely to encounter at each step along the way — while confirming program participants’ needs early in the process.

As your independent consultant we have the advantage of objectively evaluating your stated project goals, then building consensus (among your organization’s varied corporate interests) for our program — while, at the same time, uncovering and settling potential conflicts before they have a chance to surface. End result: A win for everyone involved.

MANAGING PRODUCT VARIABLES

Since time to market is essential, an early step in ensuring that a design program will be managed efficiently is to eliminate the unknowns in as many product-related variables as possible. Variables such as: target pricing, user expectations, product lifecycle, engineering standards, manufacturing standards and shipping constraints.

DEMYSTIFYING THE DESIGN PROCESS

Art is personal. Design is a team sport. Once we’ve jointly defined our project goals and confirmed the best direction, our design process is an open book. We’ll proactively update you at every stage of development (as often, or rarely as you prefer — it’s different with every client), and we're always happy to clarify our progress, and our thinking, whenever you call.

TESTING AND PROVING CONCEPTS WITH TOOLS

Prototyping
We offer in-house woodworking, traditional prototyping with shop fabrication equipment, enabling us to produce a range of prototypes — from hand-built models for idea confirmation to rapid-built production prototypes for engineering confirmation and market introductions. Our team has an exceptional depth of experience and expertise in materials technology — from traditional woods and metals to leading-edge plastics.

Engineering
Product engineering is an integral component of every design chosen for production. We’ll create custom kinematic models for mechanical designs to compound surface geometry for injection mold tooling. And we’ll provide you with SolidWorks CAD files and support FEA analyses for each products’ structural parts and assemblies.

Manufacturing
We know manufacturing from years of first-hand experience, and we’ve served manufacturers using a wide variety of material and process. Which is why our product solutions are always developed with an eye toward minimizing your costs of manufacturing while maximizing the ease of implementation in your facilities.

Sales Presentations
Our deep understanding of market needs for our product solutions gives us an edge in identifying and highlighting the most appealing and innovative attributes. With the completion of each project, we include a summary highlighting the products features, benefits and differences from your competition. Our descriptive product attributes and competitive product summaries become context for your teams’ sales approach and presentations to customers.