In recent history we’re seeing an evolution in how products get developed.
An example
We’re involved with a company that manufacturers industry-leading baseball equipment for the sports industry. They came to us with a concept for making a certain product, with very specific knowledge around customer requirements. The client had a price point they wanted to achieve, and asked us to work with them on development.
Digging in on details
CMD offered a broad understanding of manufacturing and the ability to interface on the technical side to engage several best in class manufacturers to get their feedback on several key processes. For this particular product it involved casting, machining, threading, over-moulding, and more. We dug in and created a design brief, where we integrated the expertise of China suppliers, customer requirements, and the CMD team’s design innovations.
Bridging innovation with manufacturing expertise
We were able to quickly move into design concepts that we shared first with the client and then potential factories to get their feedback on manufacturability. We bridged the gap between what the customer wanted to achieve to capitalize on a market niche – while relying on the factory to understand some of the unique characteristics of manufacturing processes. What resulted was a product that looked very different from the initial design supplied to us. In fact, it was a brand-new product, never before seen by the industry.
Trends in China Product Development: Design for Manufacturability from Christina Li on Vimeo.
Success
The CMD team was able to get from the mind of the customer–into the hands of a consumer–a superior solution that helped the client expand their offering portfolio and grow their brand. In fact, the entire container of the new product sold out, while it was on the water, before it landed in the USA.
Accelerating four more innovations
Due to this success, the Client asked the CMD team to repeat the same process with an additional four products. Some of these were within the client’s original product line, and some helped them branch out with entirely new products lines, where CMD took their ‘Blue Ocean’ concepts of “what could we come up with?” to very real, game-changing solutions…in a matter of months vs. years. How? By understanding the broad possibilities of what’s out there from a manufacturing perspective, while zeroing in very specific capabilities to make exceptional products in a shorter period of time.
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