ESC and Brushless Motors: The Top Motion Control Solutions for High-Performance Products

For companies looking for aftermarket solutions for products that spin, fly, propel, actuate, or involve other sorts of movement, two motion control solutions top the list: ESC (electronic speed control) and DC brushless motors. These solutions work in tandem to meet the premium demands of high-performance innovations by providing: 

• High degrees of configurability with customizable parameters 
• Dynamic, highly responsive motion variability
• Low weight-to-power ratio

In the area of ESC and brushless motors, our US-based subsidiary, Castle Creations, is an unrivaled market leader. Whether you have a current product that needs a “plug and play” solution or are looking for customized software and hardware engineering, Castle is a premier partner. 

Castle began 25 years ago in the radio-controlled hobby sector. When they started engineering motors that were so compact and efficient that they exceeded the capabilities of most industrial offerings, they quickly established a reputation as a go-to for industrial and commercial applications. Today, Castle has become the leading aftermarket specialist in low-weight, high-power, configurable ESC solutions, DC brushless motors, customized firmware, and high-performance fuel systems. 

Why ESC and Brushless Motor Solutions are in Industry-Wide Demand

High-performance products involving motion present three challenges: configurability and customization, variability, and weight-to-power ratio. Let’s look at the central role ESC and brushless motors play in meeting them. 

Configurability and Customization

High-performance products needing motion control solutions can never be a “standard issue.” Instead, they must allow users to instantly adjust them according to their customized needs and personal preferences. Castle accomplishes this with configurable software or fully configurable firmware with a seamless interface that is fully PC and mobile controllable. 

Variability

High-performance products typically need to have much higher-than-average ranges of variability, requiring the ability to smoothly respond in real-time to sudden changes across a broad range of conditions. Castle makes this possible with advanced motion control features that include: 

• Adjustable throttle and brake curves
• Motor timing
• Data logging
• SMARTSENSETM to seamlessly transition between sensored and sensorless operation

Weight-to-Power Ratio

High-performance products in need of motion control solutions present the steep challenge of needing to be exceptionally fast and powerful while being small in size and generating very little heat. This isn’t easy since the faster and more powerful a motor, the larger (and more expensive) it tends to be and the more heat it typically puts off. 

But Castle can overcome these size, weight, power, and cost-related challenges with ultra-compact, portable DC power systems. These systems employ incredibly small ESCs (IoT-enabled Electronic Speed Controls) with brushless DC motors to deliver a whopping 20 units of horsepower — all in a solution about the size of a shoebox. These advanced power systems leave earlier brushed motors in the dust, taking an R/C controlled from 0 to 60 in a blink of the eye and reaching speeds upwards of 130 MPH.

The Industry-Wide Applications of ESC and Brushless Motors

The high-performance applications of ESC and brushless motors span multiple markets and hundreds of use cases and can be seen in premium innovations that include: 

• Temperature-controlled suits designed for use in bomb-disposal missions
• Small autonomous harbor-security ships
• Underwater propulsion systems for recreational and military divers
• Extreme duty, battery-powered, hand-held torque wrenches
• Hoverpump systems for firefighting helicopters
• Electric A/C systems for military vehicles
• High-performance automotive fuel pumps
• Electric brake cooling systems
• Inflators for high-altitude balloons
• Robotic arms and drive systems
• Mission-critical military and civilian drones

Innovation, Quality, and Support

Castle differentiates itself from its competitors with its culture of innovation, Made-In-the-USA quality, and peerless product support. When you work with Castle, you work with a team that stands behind their product and has your back — before, during, and after your purchase.

When you have questions, concerns, or just want to understand your product more deeply, you can count on direct, personal contact from Castle’s team. Many businesses refer to their customers as “partners,” but few make good on the expression. Castle is a shining exception. Their teams work in direct partnership with you, taking an individualized and collaborative approach to creating your innovation. And because they’re centrally located in the Midwest, they’re never far away and will always welcome your presence on site. 

Pivot is thrilled to count Castle among its family of nine companies and is proud to showcase its elite engineering expertise. If you’d like to learn more about how Castle can provide the motion control solutions you’re looking for, or if you’d like to learn more about our extensive suite of technologies and services, contact us today.

How Digital Twinning Drives Cost-Effective Manufacture, Distribution, and More

Digital twins first appeared two decades ago and were limited to aerospace and other hardware-intensive manufacturing industries. Today, digital twinning applications span nearly every industry. And as companies preparing to launch a new innovation recognize how this technology can drive cost-effective NPD, it’s fast becoming one of the most sought-after capabilities in a development partner.  

What Is Digital Twinning?

As one industry leader put it, digital twinning is a way to break the laws of physics. How? Via simulations, companies that take advantage of this technology can travel back in time, accelerate time, and see into the future to gain actionable insights that drive business value. 

From a technical perspective, digital twinning is the creation of an analytics model (or “mirror”) of real-world systems, processes, and physical assets (inputs) that serve as the basis for processing real-time data and augmenting human decision-making. Using data from IoT sensors attached to input sources to analyze their real-time status, these virtual models and digital replicas enable AI programs or human operators to monitor and learn from them. This allows companies to quickly spot problems, improve operations, fuel efficiency, and increase ROI. 

At Pivot International, we are a global, one-source product design, development, manufacturing, and supply chain firm. As industry leaders in IoT, sensors, and digital evolution, our strategic investments include two mirrored Samsung high-speed SMT lines — the newest, most effective electronic manufacturing solution.

With fifty years of proven NPD and DFM experience, we help companies develop and deliver successful products for medical, industrial, security and defense, sports and entertainment, construction, and agricultural markets. And with 320,000 square feet of manufacturing space across three continents, digital twinning makes a competitive difference for our customers by driving down costs throughout the supply and value chain.  

Scalable Manufacturing

By mirroring production lines, digital twinning can perform identical specifications to maximize manufacturing volume, ramping production up when demand surges and scaling it back when it wanes. (Which also plays a critical role in inventory control.) Thanks to a shared server and database, manufacturing parameters can also be simultaneously reconfigured in response to emerging insights and developments.  

Optimized Distribution

Manufacturers that deploy digital twinning enable their customers to flexibly shift production from one facility to another to reduce the time and expense of distribution costs. Digital twinning, along with AI, mixed reality, robotics, and blockchain technologies, is emerging as the foundation for cost-effectively getting products to customers when and where they need them.

Process Improvement

Too many companies — and the NPD partners they work with — suffer from siloed metrics and disconnective systems. The result is a lack of understanding about how performance in one area affects another, making it impossible to alter workflows to reduce friction and fuel efficiencies. Digital twinning — along with Pivot’s one-source business model — helps solve this problem. It breaks down silos and integrates systems with a virtual “boots on the ground” view, allowing companies to improve processes to reduce waste and redundancies, resolve sticking points, and make deliberate tradeoffs that support cost savings. 

Supply Chain Transparency

Digital twinning is coming to play a prominent part in state-of-the-art supply chain and logistics. By combining static information – addresses, order dates, and cargo types – and real-time telemetry data on container location, asset conditions, and weather conditions – companies can get a virtual “eye in the sky” view of the supply chain in real-time. With supply chain pressures at an all-time high, the role of digital twinning in combatting disruption is proving more important than ever. 

Smart Warehousing

McKinsey reports that businesses are spending approximately $350 billion each year on warehousing, making fulfillment, and the infrastructure that supports it, a key competitive differentiator. Digital twinning provides visibility into this infrastructure, and applications span the spectrum from packaging and container to warehouse and distribution to inventory management and logistics networks. 

Risk Reduction

As explained earlier, digital twinning can be a bit like a time machine, but it can also be compared to a crystal ball. By using this technology to help run sophisticated risk scenarios, including those informed by real-time data, companies are better able to foresee risks and successfully avoid threats. 

Enhanced Equipment Security

Servicing industrial equipment after a problem has occurred can be incredibly costly. On the other hand, time and expense are too often channeled into “servicing” industrial equipment that is in perfect working order and will remain so indefinitely. But digital twinning detects issues early, reliably predicts when maintenance is in order,  and can even initiate autonomous repair.

By now, it’s easy to see why digital twinning is an essential ingredient in NPD. If you’re gearing up to develop and deliver a winning innovation, Pivot is the partner you’ve been looking for. With an extensive portfolio of internationally award-winning products, a diverse suite of the latest digital technologies, and a collaborative approach to doing business, our teams will work closely with yours to fuel your market success. If you’d like to learn more about how Pivot can support your business objectives, contact ustoday. 

The Future of Data-Driven NPD

“Data” has been a business buzzword on the lips of almost every corporate consultant for at least the last decade. And while the prophets of data had many believers, the concept of data-driven operations for most companies has tended to remain more aspirational abstraction than concrete reality.

But with the acceleration of digital evolution hasted by the global pandemic, this is rapidly changing. And just in time. Data-driven technologies have the potential to solve or attenuate many of today’s most pressing problems. (Indeed, data is a key component for building more secure, resilient, efficient, and sustainable supply chains.) Moreover, leaders in digital evolution are far better equipped to create orders of value that offer them and their customers a significant competitive edge.

At Pivot International, we are global leaders in data-driven NPD. We bring nearly fifty years of proven experience and extensive investment in the latest digital technologies, including machine learning, AI, blockchain, cloud computing, and digitally twinned, mirror-mounted SMT lines. Data-supported capabilities are baked into every phase of our one-source model. This enables us to optimize every aspect of the broader NPD process. How? By mining data-driven insights throughout each phase of development. This, in turn, drives process improvements, extracts maximum value, and delivers competitive innovations for our clients.

For enterprise organizations especially, full-scale digital evolution remains a steep challenge. Even so, more and more companies are trodding this path, and as they do, a new future of data-driven NPD is underway. How will such a future look for companies and their clients? What follows is a high-level answer to this question.

Data Ubiquity

NPD is rarely undertaken in a “data ubiquitous” context. Even when data is part of the NPD equation, it’s seldom threaded through every decision, interaction, and process. This means that potential problems — and valuable opportunities — are routinely missed or revealed only after sunk costs have accrued. But as more and more product developers reenvision project workflows, team functions, and development processes through the lens of integrative data solutions, problems can be solved (and opportunities seized) much faster.

Real-Time Insights

The limitations of legacy technology and architectural structures mean that many product developers utilize only the smallest fraction of data from IoT-enabled devices in real-time. These companies have not yet attained the capacity to maintain process speed while also analyzing and applying real-time, data-driven insights to use case questions. But as digital evolution picks up speed, more and more real-time data analysis, insight, and application will power NPD to benefit customers, employees, and partners.

Ready-Made Data Stores

Though unstructured or semi-structured data drive the proliferation of data, most usable data is structured using relational database tools. Companies that have yet to reach critical mass with digital evolution rely on relational database tools to organize unstructured or semi-structured data. The result is that data engineers must invest considerable time in the manual exploration of data sets to structure and make use of them. Simply, unstructured and semi-structured data stores are extremely time-consuming to “bake” for meaningful consumption. (They are also error-prone and impossible to scale.)

But as more flexible, efficient, scalable ways of organizing data become more ready-made (“pre-baked”) through digital evolution, product developers can much more quickly detect the relationships between different kinds of data sets. This, in turn, affords timely and powerful insights that fuel innovation and promote the development of data products such as digital twins. At Pivot, digital twinning allows us to run sophisticated simulations that more accurately predict risk scenarios while also revealing novel possibilities.

Data Ecosystem Expansion

Data-sharing with subsidiaries, clients, and competitors is rare even when product developers achieve a critical mass of digital evolution within their organization. In the future, it will become the norm for data-driven product developers to create, contribute to, and profit from a more encompassing data ecosystem. This exchange of data will drive synergistic insights and highly differentiated data products.

Prioritization of Privacy and Security

Data privacy and security are crucial for product developers (particularly those with a manufacturing arm). (The manufacturing industry is currently facing a virtual epidemic of cybercrime.) In companies still creeping toward achieving critical mass in digital evolution, privacy and security are often reduced to compliance issues and consumer concerns. But for data-driven product development companies, data security and privacy are regarded as independent and highly valuable areas of competency. (For both a strong business case and ethical argument are made.) At Pivot, centralized coordination and oversight are baked into our technology stack and business model to provide our partners maximum data security.

Looking for a Data-Driven NPD Partner to Support Your Market Success?

If you’re gearing up to launch a new product and seeking an industry leader in digital evolution, Pivot can help. With advanced NPD and DFM experience across fourteen industries and six markets, 320,000 square feet of scalable manufacturing capability (offshore and domestic), and innovative supply chain solutions, we’ll take you from proof-of-concept to successful launch. Contact us today to learn more about our data-driven, highly collaborative approach to developing award-winning products!

Ten Imposters That Can Jeopardize Your New Product Development Project

If you’re developing a new product, you already know the purpose of observing best practices is to create the conditions necessary for achieving market success. But because research-backed approaches to NPD can sometimes seem counter-intuitive, leaders often end up implementing “best practices” that turn out to be imposters. In this piece, we’ll call out the culprits and provide some touchpoints for helping companies course correct.

Ten New Product Development Best Practice Imposters

1. Thinking Too Tactically

This is a case of missing the forest for the trees. When NPD is seen in linear terms, it can be impossible to successfully navigate the complex territory of the broader process.

Course correction: Factor NPD into your long-term strategy, aligning it with your company’s overarching mission. Survey and map the broader NPD ecosystem, define organizational and market opportunity spaces, and understand NPD in context of your position in the corporate lifecycle.

2. Siloing your New Product Development Project

Even though silo has long been a four-letter word in the management literature, many companies still behave as though NPD is primarily the concern of the C-suite and upper management.

Course correction: Make NPD part of your cultural DNA. Establish cross-company NPD processes to break down silos and create project visibility and alignment across all departments at every level of your organization.

3. Leaving the Customer Out

While businesses typically know their customers better than anyone, this doesn’t mean they know nearly as much as they could, or should. And even if they’ve done their market research and gathered extensive customer data, this is only the beginning.

Course correction: Include customers throughout the NPD process. Customers belong at the beginning, middle, and end of NPD. Not only is their active participation essential for early-stage focus groups and other forms of customer research, it’s also critical later in the process for refining use case, testing prototypes, optimizing UX, and analyzing post-launch outcomes.

4. Sticking Too Rigidly to the Plan

The tree that cannot bend, breaks. While a New Product Development project can never successfully proceed without a carefully documented plan, leaders may become too attached to it, even when circumstances change.

Course correction: Aim for flexibility within a framework to retain the agility you’ll need to successfully adapt to unforeseen obstacles, market shifts, and fluctuations in demand. Build alternatives, deliberate tradeoffs, and contingencies into your plan.

5. Breaking Critical Links in the Product Development Chain

In the quest for cost savings, many companies parse ownership of design, engineering, and manufacturing between multiple partners. This often results in a piecemeal approach that is often fraught with miscommunications, delays, and sunk costs.

Course correction: Keep the links between design, engineering, and manufacturing intact by working with a one-source DFM partner. DFM (Design For Manufacture) will ensure a streamlined, seamless process that drives cost savings by optimizing design for scalable manufacture. At Pivot International, our one-source business model, in-house DFM talent, NPD expertise across fourteen industries, and 320,000 square feet of offshore and domestic manufacturing space ensure the integrity of the longer NPD chain.

6. Underestimating Risk

Even with supply chain disruption and other hazards looming larger than ever, many companies underestimate risk by lacking proper models for understanding and managing it.

Course correction: Reduce threat by identifying common misconceptions about risk. Adopt more sophisticated models for managing it and engage a partner with a track record of helping clients successfully combat disruption. At Pivot, our diversified global sourcing network and expertise in creating alternative engineering solutions are just two of the strategies we employ for helping our partners manage risk.

7. Limiting the Ability to Learn in Real-time

When key stakeholders undertake NPD without the clear intent to actively learn in real-time, they’re less likely to glean and apply key insights and recognize emerging problems or opportunities.

Course correction: Conduct after-action reviews for every phase and significant sub-phase of your New Product Development project. This will allow you to “learn while doing” and better predict potential complications, identify opportunities, improve processes, and innovate as you go.

8. Defining Project Criteria Too Broadly

When project criteria are fuzzy it’s like aiming for a bull’s eye while wearing a blindfold. You may hit the target, but the chances are slim-to-none you’ll hit the center.

Course correction: Aim for a high-resolution image of your project criteria. Establish crystal clear performance metrics and gatekeeping measures. The more tightly you define and differentiate your success criteria, the more likely you’ll be to make your mark.

9. Thinking Too Late in the Process About Product Launch

Because product launch lies in the late stages of the NPD process, it’s easy to assume that launch planning can be reserved for this stage as well.

Course correction: One thing that all successful strategies have in common is that it begins with the end in mind, identifying a destination to which this strategy is intended to lead. This means you’ll need to think about launch early in the NPD process, as well as pre-launch and post-launch activities.

10. Failing to Bring Your Project Full Circle

It’s tempting to think that since you’ve successfully launched that your job is done. But in some ways, it’s just getting started.

Course correction: Conduct a retrospective. While after-action reviews are about learning while doing, retrospectives are about learning after doing. Gather all relevant stakeholders together to undertake a holistic analysis of the project to profitably inform your path forward.

When these ten “best practices” are unmasked as imposters, you’ll be far less likely to fall prey to blindspots that can jeopardize your NPD.

If you’re gearing up to bring a new product to market, we’re the partner you’ve been looking for! Our nearly fifty years of trusted experience, proven track record of helping companies scale, and portfolio of internationally award-winning products speaks for itself. If you’d like to learn more about how we can help you make your product vision a successful reality, contact us today!

We look forward to working with you!

Seven Mistakes Risk Managers Make and How to Avoid Them

It is now apparent that we live in a world for which traditional risk models are no match. Black swan events (low-probability, high-impact events) and other complex risks are increasing, and risk models that perpetuate illusions of reliably predicting them are part of the problem.

At Pivot International, we are a leading global new product development (NPD) partner with expertise across fourteen industries helping clients combat complex risks to bring successful innovations to market. We do this with a single-source model that integrates product design, development, manufacturing, and supply chain management. With in-house DFM expertise, alternative sourcing solutions (including 320,000 square feet of manufacturing space worldwide, including domestic options), and nearly fifty years of proven experience, we help clients worldwide successfully navigate complex risks.

In attempting to predict rather than reduce vulnerability to risk, even seasoned risk managers routinely fall prey to seven mistakes. This piece will offer seven correctives that can help company leaders better prepare for and navigate black swan events and complex risk scenarios.

1. Understand The Problem of Prediction

Black swans can’t be meaningfully extrapolated from past events, which is another way of saying they lack precedent. This order of risk emerges from complex-system dynamics, which is to say they are fateful byproducts of social, cultural, geopolitical, and techno-economic innovation.

For example, take the advent of the automobile, nuclear power, the digital revolution, and CRISPR technology. These innovations are without precedent, and before their emergence, no one could have predicted the risk of automobile fatalities, the specter of nuclear war, the danger of cyberattacks, or the threat of gene drive. This highlights why not even machine learning can reliably predict black swan events.

2. Focus on Whens, Not Ifs

We have a dismal track record of predicting black swans and other complex risks. For one, becoming preoccupied with predictive analysis can result in tunnel vision that blinds us to threats in our periphery, causing us to miss the forest for the trees. To reduce vulnerability to risk, don’t focus on if, focus on when, working from the assumption that impact has already occurred. From here, it’s much easier to begin reasonably assessing the resilience of your business, supply chain, and market landscape.

3. Don’t Dismiss Cassandras

All human cultures have their own version of the ancient Greek myth of Cassandra. This myth functions as a cautionary tale about the perils of disbelieving or ignoring individuals who warn against valid and often dire threats. While it’s true that black swans can’t be predicted based on the past, this doesn’t mean that credible warnings are never issued.

Warren Buffet, for example, repeatedly warned of the financial crisis of 2008, even earning the moniker “The Wall Street Cassandra,” but few companies listened. And early in the global pandemic, preeminent risk analyst Nassim Taleb warned in great detail that a supply chain crisis was unfolding that would only become apparent in late 2021. But many companies failed to take heed and have been largely unprepared for the port bottlenecks and container, chip, component, and trucking shortages currently plaguing the global supply chain.

4. See Risk Management as a Profit-Generating Pursuit

A dollar not lost is economically equivalent to a dollar earned, but humans are psychologically wired to miss this point and thus to pursue positives rather than avoiding negatives. (Something that political campaign managers and marketing gurus have understood for decades and used to their advantage.) In practice, this means that most companies pursue profits at the expense of avoiding losses. Instead, they need to see risk management as a profit-generating pursuit.

5. Beware of Standard Deviation

Standard deviation is routinely used in finance but beware of its common misapplication, especially to risk management. Research shows that even quantitative analysts struggle to understand standard deviation. When these analysts were given information detailing a stock’s average absolute movement (its mean absolute deviation) and asked to run the numbers, they confused it with standard deviation. When professional analysts struggle with standard deviation, this doesn’t bode well for business leaders. But the real lesson here is this: when it comes to managing complex risk, relying on a single number is an exercise in folly, and even a comprehensive Risk Score can lead to a false sense of security.

6. Don’t Sacrifice Resilience for Efficiency

The single-minded pursuit of efficiency represents a grave risk to resilience. In nature, anti-fragile, adaptive systems have built-in redundancies or “risk protection” features that dramatically increase their resilience to threat and loss. (Lose one eye or lung, for example, and you’ve got another to spare.) But for decades, businesses have been allergic to redundancies, leaving them bereft of crucial buffers. Without strategically building redundancies into your business model, you’ll sacrifice resilience for efficiency, leaving your company dangerously exposed.

7. Illuminate Your Blindspot

The human preference for certainty, aversion to ambiguity, a tendency toward cognitive bias, and inclination to overestimate competence and underestimate risk represents what may be the clearest and present danger in risk management. Leaders who tend to be the best prepared for black swans and complex risk are almost always those who actively seek to illuminate their blind spot to strategically reconceive the risk landscape. How? Ask unorthodox questions, redefine problems, struggle with opposing perspectives, entertain outlier opinions, and invite critical feedback to reveal and challenge unseen assumptions.

While black swans and other complex risk scenarios can’t be reliably predicted, you can reduce your vulnerability to them. By heeding these correctives to seven common risk management mistakes, you can better navigate complex risk landscapes and protect your business.

Are you looking for a partner to help you combat risk and deliver a winning innovation to market? We’re what you’ve been looking for! We work closely with your team every step of the way, optimizing your design for manufacture to drive cost savings, fuel innovation, increase supply chain security, and deliver a competitive product. Contact us today to learn about how we can help you achieve a successful launch!

Peak Performance Optimization vs Peak Resource Utilization

Nearly everyone is familiar with the metaphor of “running on all cylinders,” understanding it to refer to the idea of peak performance optimization — something that all companies strive to attain. But when applied to new product development (NPD), this metaphor can be dangerously misleading. Why? Because running your NPD on all cylinders (aiming for peak resource utilization) can generate the opposite effect.

At Pivot International, we are a global single-source NPD and DFM leader with a proven track record of helping hundreds of clients deliver successful innovations to market. By integrating product design, development, manufacturing, and supply chain management, we optimize each aspect of the broader process to drive peak performance while helping you avoid the dangers of peak resource utilization. 

Four Reasons Why It Can Be So Easy to Confuse PPO with PRU

Running your NPD on all cylinders is one of the fastest ways to jeopardize your project, organizational health, and bottom line. Research shows that many NPD managers aim for resource utilization above 98%. This highlights a common confusion that occurs when peak performance optimization is confused with peak resource utilization. In this next section, we’ll examine why it can be so easy to confuse the two, along with how to get clarity for moving forward successfully. 

1. Companies Are Conditioned to Fear Redundancies

For decades now, companies have been conditioned to pursue maximum efficiency at the expense of resilience. Of course, no company sets out to make this devil’s bargain. It’s simply a natural consequence of indiscriminate adoption of lean practices designed to eliminate redundancies. But the single-minded pursuit of wringing every last drop of productivity and profit from as few resources as possible exposes companies to considerable risk. This holds for every activity a business undertakes, including NPD, making the quest to reconcile resilience with efficiency a critical task.

2. NPD Processes are Highly Variable and Nonlinear

Deliberately conserving resources allocated expressly for NPD can seem counterintuitive. After all, if your company isn’t investing 100% of such resources into this activity, don’t you run the risk of being slower, less efficient, less productive, and more likely to be left behind by competitors who are “operating on all cylinders?”

The resounding and decidedly counterintuitive answer to this question is no. The reason is that NPD processes (in contrast to manufacturing processes) are highly variable and nonlinear rather than predictably rote and repetitive. This means that even slight increases in resource utilization can generate dramatic delays. For example, increasing resource expenditures by a mere 2% may result in a 50% reduction in overall speed, efficiency, and output. This illustrates why project leads with complexity management experience can be so valuable and why it’s imperative to adjust your management control systems to ensure you’re not overcommitting your resources.

3. Queue Costs are Often Underestimated

Peak resource utilization stands a strong chance of creating project queues, therefore extending project duration and time-to-market. But queues come with other costly hazards. They prevent timely feedback needed for informing the broader process. They also prevent companies from making the rapid pivots required for responding in real-time to changing conditions.

To strike a balance between queue costs and the cost of underutilized capacity, you’ll need to get crystal clear on your project priorities and know when and where to apply the brakes. Keep in mind you can significantly shorten or eliminate queues and unlock vital feedback by adding resources to areas of NPD where utilization rates exceed 70%. 

4. Significant Portions of NPD Can Be Relatively Invisible

The manufacturing stage of NPD is highly tangible and therefore easily visible and trackable. Conversely, NPD activities like product requirement metrics, use case and design documentation, CAD instructions, and so forth are highly intangible and therefore relatively invisible and challenging to track. Adding to the challenge of visibility, R&D inventory must be maintained at zero value, and excessive inventory is rarely reflected in financial statements.

The lesson here is that it’s easy to overestimate your resource capacity. When companies confuse PPO with PRU, they set themselves up for a shortfall, making it crucial to track and factor tangible and intangible variables into your resource utilization budget. 

Moving Forward Successfully

Running your NPD on all cylinders is one of the fastest ways to jeopardize your NPD, organizational health, and bottom line, but clarifying the confusion between PPO and PRU can help you move forward successfully.

If you’re gearing up to develop a new product, we can help! With nearly fifty years of experience, DFM expertise that spans fourteen industries, 320,000 square feet of global manufacturing capability, and an internationally award-winning product portfolio, we will help you make your product vision a successful market reality! Contact us today to learn how a partnership with Pivot can fuel your growth! 

Ten Questions for Assessing Your Product Requirements

Use case — the case made for how a user interacts with a product or system — is essential to the broader product development process. But the path to building a reliable use case depends on something more fundamental: establishing product requirements.

At Pivot International, we’re a single-source global product design, development, and manufacturing firm with specialized experience in determining the minimum viable products to refine ambiguous requirements. With nearly 50 years of expertise across fourteen industries, we deliver the technical diversity and know-how to help our clients move from viable use case solutions to optimal ones.

In this piece, we’ll first explain why it makes sense to look at product requirements separately from the use case. Then, we’ll provide a brief overview of the two types of product requirements. Lastly, we’ll provide ten questions to help you assess your product requirements.

Why Develop a Product Requirement List Separate From Use Case?

Beginning with a product requirements list that is distinct from use case enhances traceability. This is essential for ensuring that each identified requirement is tied to business needs and is incorporated in the broader product development process. In other words, use cases can certainly be crafted that capture all requirements, but many lend themselves to being considered separately.

Two Types of Product Requirements

Product requirements fall into functional and non-functional categories. (Either of which can be ambiguous — open to interpretation and therefore optimized to use in various ways.)

Functional Requirements

As the term suggests, functional requirements focus primarily on how a product works and performs. It also defines its parameters, scope, and interface with relevant technologies. (At Pivot, because many of the products we develop depend on multiple technologies – wifi, cellular, Bluetooth, and so forth – ensuring compatibility between them is vital.) Examples of functional requirements include assessments related to SWAP-c challenges. (Challenges related to product size, weight, power, and cost ratios.)

Non-Functional Requirements (NFRs)

Non-functional requirements focus less on how a product works and performs and more on how it looks, feels, and is experienced by the end-user within the product ecosystem and operating environment. Non-Functional requirements also consider what is required to maintain a product and examine potential security issues related to its use.

Non-functional requirements also factor in the regulatory standards set for any given industry and product category. (This is why selecting a partner with the necessary certifications is mandatory for ensuring quality and achieving regulatory compliance.) They also include cultural and political considerations.

For all these reasons and more, NFRs are not incidental but rather serve to strategically constrain development and limit design options. (Which paradoxically serves to fuel rather than hinder innovation.)

Ten Questions for Assessing Your Product Requirements

Now that we’ve explored the difference between functional and non-functional requirements, let’s cover ten questions to ensure your bases are well covered.

1. Are the product requirements bounded? (Are they contextualized within the product ecosystem and operating environment?)
2. Are they accurate? (Do they correctly describe the product in question using detailed specifications?)
3. Are they complete? (Do they describe product criteria in comprehensive terms?)
4. Are they coherent? (Do any of the sub-requirements run counter to each other?)
5. Are they realistic? (Is it possible to create this product in light of technology and manufacturing limitations or supply chain challenges?)
6. Are they necessary? (Are these requirements truly non-negotiable, or can they be dispensed with?)
7. Are they ambiguous? (Can they be interpreted in more than one way or satisfied with any number of solutions?)
8. Are they prioritized? (Have they been scaled from most to least important?)
9. Are they verifiable? (Do reasonable metrics exist for assessing and testing them?)
10. Are they validated by all stakeholders? (Are stakeholders in agreement about answers to the previous nine questions?)

Moving Closer Toward Use Case

Use case begins where satisfying your product requirements ends, so you can now start applying the insights you’ve gained to this next step in the process. (To learn more about use case creation, read this piece describing Pivot’s approach to developing optimal solutions for use case challenges.)

Are you gearing up to begin NPD? Pivot is the partner you’ve been looking for! With local roots and global reach, an internationally award-winning product portfolio that spans multiple markets, and a proven track record of success, we’ll work closely with your team to make your product vision a profitable market reality. Contact us today to learn more!

Supply Chain Crisis Threatening Your NPD? There May Be a Way Forward

Fifteen seconds of scrolling through your favorite news platform quickly reveals the sourcing crisis has become so extreme that even business leaders who have never before given much thought to logistics have now developed a case of “supply chain brain.” While a small group of elite risk analysts and supply chain thought leaders predicted the current crisis in early 2020, no one was prepared for its scope and scale. For this reason, solutions are increasingly in short supply, and businesses are left with fewer and fewer options.

At Pivot International, well before the current crisis began taking shape, we developed a reputation as a leading global new product development (NPD) partner with disruption-defying capabilities. Since the pandemic’s peak, our reputation has only grown, and today, we continue to provide strategies that help buffer our partners from impact. In the shorter term, if a way forward is to be found, it will likely lie in domestic sourcing and engineering workarounds. In this piece, we’ll explore both strategies to help you determine if they may benefit your business.

Domestic Sourcing and Manufacturing

The complex interdependencies of the global supply chain preclude easy answers or magic bullets to the current crisis. For instance, even if a part or component can successfully be sourced from overseas, the challenge of procuring a container for transport can render what seems to be a promising way forward yet another dead end.

This means, for many US businesses, if a part or component can’t be sourced or manufactured domestically, it can’t be sourced or manufactured, period. At Pivot, depending on your needs, we may be able to help you overcome this problem. Although we are a global firm, a significant portion of our 320,000 square feet of engineering and manufacturing space is based in the heart of the American midwest.

Four of our US-based subsidiaries — Avatar, EDM, MCC Electronics, and DigitTron — specialize in IoT, SMT, industrial controls, box builds, electronic and through-hole assemblies, and much more. These locations offer varied and highly flexible runs, including prototype runs, small- and full-production runs, and short-to-medium inventory runs of electronic product solutions.

While domestic sourcing is typically less cost-effective than global sourcing — even in the best of times — this is not always the case. In light of the current crisis, the cost-benefit analysis of domestic vs. global sourcing may well reveal the former to be the clear winner.

Design Workarounds (The Power of DFM)

Understanding what we mean by “design workarounds” begins with understanding the power of DFM (Design For Manufacturing.) DFM is a distinct subspecialty that very few US firms can deliver in-house. DFM teams approach NPD from a perspective that takes into account the limitations of manufacturing technology and equipment. Not only does this ensure from the get-go that products can be cost-effectively manufactured at scale, but it also helps to drive innovation. How? By forcing teams to come up with novel solutions to stubborn design and engineering challenges.

It’s not hard to see how DFM has everything to do with the ability to overcome supply chain challenges. For example, DFM allows teams to approach a potential product design with the following reasoning: “Normally, this design would require X component or Y part, but because X and Y aren’t currently available or are cost-prohibitive, could we possibly substitute Z, which is procurable and cost-effective?”

At Pivot, by sourcing either domestically or from our diverse global network, we can often procure alternative components, parts, and materials that work every bit as well as those originally intended for a design.

Approximately 30-50% of the products we’re currently developing for our clients are created with these kinds of successful design-and-engineering workarounds and use-case optimizations. Again, even under the worst of circumstances, this approach drives cost-efficiencies. But amid a supply chain crisis, it can also be the difference between a business’s success and failure.

Supply chain challenges have never been more extreme, and longer-term, sustainable solutions will require a concerted effort between leading supply chain experts, key industry stakeholders, and astute policymakers. In the meantime, shorter-term strategies may be your business’s best bet in mitigating the crisis and protecting your bottom line. If you’d like to learn more about how we can help you weather the storm and find your way forward, contact us today.

A Five-Pronged Approach to Driving Down COGS

The concept of COGS (Cost of Goods Sold) is simple. It refers to the direct costs that are involved with bringing a new product to market. (Direct costs include everything from raw materials and components to design and engineering to manufacturing and distribution.) Say, for example, that your COGS for bringing a new IoT device to market totaled $600K, your indirect costs (overhead, marketing, and so forth) totaled $200K, and your product sales totaled $1M. In this case, you’d subtract your COGS and indirect costs from this number, leaving you with $200K in profit.

Any business leader can see that this isn’t rocket science — there’s nothing complex about the concept of COGS. But what can become incredibly complex is devising strategic solutions for driving them down. This is a core challenge in developing any new product since the lower the COGS, the greater the potential for ROI.

At Pivot International, we’re a one-source global leader in the areas of product design, development, manufacturing, and distribution. With a half-century of DFM experience that spans fourteen industries, we help companies worldwide solve complex cost equations by taking a five-pronged approach to driving down COGS. Here’s how it works.

1. Begin With the End User in Mind

Strategically reducing COGS begins with a process of reverse engineering from an end-user perspective. This is necessary for establishing a clear product definition and an airtight use case. Without this approach, companies risk creating a product that appears to check all the right boxes but falls flat with its intended customer base.

Beginning the product development process without the end-user in mind is like beginning medical treatment on a patient without first taking a thorough case history and establishing a clear diagnosis. Without a clear diagnosis, it’s impossible to create an effective treatment plan. This is why the best, shortest, and most cost-effective path for successfully delivering a new product to market involves beginning with the end-user and working backward.

2. Make Strategic Trade-Offs Using a Big-Picture Perspective

Once our teams at Pivot begin the process of reverse-engineering the broader product development pathway from use-case, we must also identify opportunities to drive down COGS by making strategic trade-offs. (And this is where things become exponentially complex since we’re no longer dealing with a linear cost equation.) At this point in the process, considerations of speed, scope, and scale come into play. These considerations involve sourcing, materials, labor, production, distribution, and more. Strategic trade-offs must be undertaken with the certainty that they will not result in an unacceptable deviation from the established product definition, use case, and quality standards.

Working with a one-source partner that handles all aspects of product development under a single company umbrella dramatically increases the odds of meeting these goals. A partner whose business model integrates every aspect of the product development process is uniquely equipped to take a big-picture perspective. This is crucial because it ensures trade-offs are strategic. (Rather than an unwitting exercise in generating costly second-and third-order consequences.)

3. Leverage Diversified Sourcing Solutions

Diversified sourcing solutions play an essential role in solving your COGS equation. Even before the global supply chain began to fray under the tension of pandemic-driven disruption, it was never a good idea to have all your eggs in one basket. But as supply chain issues continue to pose steep challenges (think of the chip shortage and ongoing trade tensions with China), working with a partner with diversified sourcing solutions has become a non-negotiable.

This isn’t just to protect against shortages or procurement delays. It’s also part and parcel of what’s needed for driving down COGS by making strategic trade-offs. Having a wide range of well-vetted sourcing options and suppliers helps you get the most competitive price. At Pivot, our global sourcing network spans three continents to securely and cost-effectively serve U.S., European, and Asian markets.

4. Unleash the Power of Design For Manufacture

The purpose of DFM (Design for Manufacturing) is to ensure your product design is in sync with manufacturing considerations. This affords certainty early in the product development process that your innovation can be cost-effectively produced at scale. Too often, when design isn’t informed from the get-go by manufacturing and supply chain expertise, companies end up with a product that may be extraordinary in its own right but cost-prohibitive to mass-produce. (Which results in skyrocketing COGS.) At Pivot, we unleash the world’s top DFM talent to develop award-winning innovations for our clients that drive growth.

5. Unlock the Benefits of Flexible Manufacturing

With rare exceptions, high-volume production is significantly more cost-effective than low-volume production. This is why selecting a partner with large-scale production capacity is a key part of driving down COGS. But because an excessive surplus of inventory can contribute to COGS, you also need a partner with the flexibility to scale production to fluctuating demand. At Pivot, we bring 320,000 square feet of manufacturing capability and options for flexible production runs. And using our SMT digital twin technology, you can “toggle” your production between locations to reduce your distributions costs.

Many companies miss many valuable opportunities to drive down COGS by not understanding the multi-pronged approach required for doing so. At Pivot, we go to great lengths to identify every possible opportunity to reduce COGS and maximize your ROI. If you’d like to learn more about how we can help you launch a successful product, contact us today. We look forward to working with you.

Seeking Investment Capital For Your NPD?

Seeking Investment Capital For Your NPD?
Here’s How to Pitch Like a Pro

When pitching a product to investors, even the smartest people make mistakes that can cost them their funding. This is easy to do since a product innovation mindset is different from an investment mindset. The individuals most central to product innovation are naturally concerned with and focused on the product itself: what it is, how it works, why it’s superior to competitor products, and so forth. (In other words, they approach the product from an end-user perspective.) However, investors approach the investment proposition from a very different perspective. Because they rarely are interested in becoming end users, they come to the table seeking information that typically has little to do with the product itself.

Structural Capability vs. Finance Savvy

Over many decades, we’ve learned that successful new product development (NPD) depends equally on two factors. 1. Structural capability. (The competencies, skills, and technologies required for creating a tangible product.) 2. Finance savvy. (The intangible competencies, expertise, and insights needed for understanding, anticipating, and capitalizing on techno-economic trends and market opportunities.) To pitch your product successfully, you’ll need to step somewhat outside your structural capability mindset and step into a finance savvy mindset. This is also the difference between shifting from a features and benefits-driven pitch to an ROI-driven one. With this in mind, here’s a high-level roadmap for pitching like a pro.

Lay the Groundwork

Even though your focus won’t be on your product, per se, there’s also no denying that it represents a crucial piece of a larger puzzle. Your job is to help your investors grasp this larger puzzle in a way that lays the groundwork for why investing in your product is in their favor. To do this, you’ll need to provide a short, simple, accessible overview of your product, the problem it’s designed to solve, and the market opportunity it allows your investor to successfully seize. What you are essentially delivering here is a compelling “elevator speech.” Another way to look at it is that you’re asking your investor for a “date,” not yet knowing whether they’ll be interested and accept your invitation. That said, make your invitation as enticing as possible.

Overcome Obstacles Related to Risk

This is the point in your presentation where you’ll shift from a broad overview and downlevel to a conversation about overcoming barriers to success. To do this, be prepared to demonstrate your product’s technical and market viability over your competitors, factoring risk prominently into the equation. Professional investors are masters of risk analysis and risk mitigation. They are almost always among the first to identify and predict threats to ROI. Currently, some of the chief risks associated with NPD involve supply chain disruption.

So, not only will you need to make a case for the market demand of your product, you’ll also need to make a strong case on how you can overcome supply chain risk. Come to the conversation with evidence of potential supply chain partners with a solid track record of deploying highly successful risk-mitigation strategies. For example, say it’s a medtech or security-sensitive product you’re hoping to launch. If this is the case, you’ll need proof of suppliers that offer cost-effective alternatives to China-sourced parts and components.

Drill Down Into the Numbers

In the first part of your presentation, you mainly focused on making a favorable “first impression.” If all went well and your investor heard you through the second part of your presentation, you can consider the relationship as having entered the dating phase. The ultimate goal, of course, is “matrimony,” where commitments of capital are made and contracts signed. In this, the third and last part of your presentation, you want to pull out all the stops and take a numbers-driven dive into the nitty-gritty of the investment opportunity. (Documentation and supporting data related to industry profit margins, pricing and revenue models, current customers, and more.) End your presentation on a strong note by making a quantified and waterproof case for why it’s in your investor’s interest to accept your hand in marriage.

Pitching like a pro comes down to standing in your investor’s shoes while still standing firm in your own product expertise. By strategically combining an end-user perspective with an investment perspective, you’re much more likely to deliver a killer pitch that will secure the capital you’re seeking.

At Pivot International, we bring nearly a half-century of trusted experience creating product innovations that are as impressive to investors as they are to end-users. Our extensive product portfolio includes internationally award-winning products across fourteen industries, including medical, industrial, and consumer. With one-source, DFM-driven expertise that takes your product from prototype and proof-of-concept all the way through scalable manufacturing and distribution, we are a proven partner to companies worldwide.

No matter where your company might be in the product development process — whether that’s initial conception, prototyping, design, engineering, manufacturing, or distribution — Pivot can help you move successfully forward. Contact us today to learn more about how we help companies seize market opportunities and bring winning products to market in challenging times.