Another presentation from the Engineering Design Show by Cambridge Consultants – Simon Smith Associate Director of Products and Systems. Five principles discussed:
- Who is your customer/user
- Is the product relevant to the customer
- How do you make a breakthrough product
- What technical opportunities are there
- When is the right moment to introduce a new product
The questions above are particularly important to Kavia customers developing new products and to Kavia developing our own products. For customers, it is reassuring your supplier has a complete empathy and experience to support your new product development. See our news blog history on the site map and our homepage for further details of how we support designers and inventors with focus on design, project management and design for manufacture.
We encourage our customers to engage with us as early as possible in the design process to help you make your project a commercial success. We can even work out your project budget requirements.
Who is your customer/user
The presenter encouraged the audience for a given scenario to think about who the customer is as this is very often not the end user, the purchaser often has different motivations in the buying decision compared to the end user. They could often be a parent, a buyer in an organisation, a doctor/nurse or a teacher. All with different needs your product design and presentation has to answer. Don’t forget the indirect customers such as developers too.
Kavia also encourages our customers to consider the routes of the products to customers and users may not be traditional as we can offer the point of manufacture as a distribution point reducing overall product cost and increasing profit margins.
Is the product relevant to the customer
You need to get your product concepts into the hands of customers for feedback, typically in focus groups. If you identify people who have patience with the product this is a clear indicator of product relevance.
Kavia will advise and support product prototyping to customers as there are many solutions available with differing degrees of suitability and cost. The additive manufacturing processes such as 3D printing is developing a rapid pace and we can steer you best solution.
How do you make a breakthrough product
New technologies, manufacturing techniques and innovation are what drive breakthrough products. Kavia regards itself as an innovative company and also works closely with our technical partners to make sure we are aware of the latest materials and manufacturing solutions. You may not be aware of a solution on your product concept so again please talk to us as soon as possible.
In our case studies history there are examples of offering an alternative new material and manufacturing technique to a customer to offer a cost saving, increase production capacity and component quality.
What technical opportunities are there
Don’t just think of technology as electronic but no doubt it is a fast moving sector. What is trending right now is product design complimented by smart phone apps, social media and 3D printing. Today’s smartphone computing power now exceeds what was used on the first luna landing. Social media is an extension of product brands and now essential part of the marketing plan. Kavia is always willing to support behind the scenes photos of your product development and manufacture. Finally, only this month a new patented 3D printing technology was launched at German K Show by Arburg – Freeformer uses commercial grade injection moulding granules to build parts with a fixed head and moving bed offering high part accuracy and 70-80% of production injection moulded strength without a mould tool. Great for prototypes and small batch runs for those user focus groups. In some instances it will be suitable for final consumer products too.
When is the right moment to introduce a new product
Some technologies and markets can mature together such as wireless wifi, with a large majority of homes now with wifi networks new products are fast emerging. Another is low energy bluetooth technology that pairs with your smartphone. Cloud computing is now used by a large population, you may even not know you are using it.
Being first to market is not always best and sometime the second bird catches the worm.
Kavia is lucky to be working with a number inventors and innovative companies so well placed, experienced and open minded to the challenges faced introducing a new product.
