Smaller, Better, Smarter, Faster. How High-Performance Motor Control Applications are the Product Solution You’ve Been Looking For
Ever blown a fuse in your house by running too many appliances, power tools, or other electrical products at the same time? If so, it may be because the electrical panel for your house is designed to handle only about 200 amps of current. (Exceed this amount, and you can count on the lights going out, the fridge shutting down, or the washing machine refusing to cycle.)
But consider this: It’s now possible to build compact, portable DC power systems using diminutive ESCs (IoT-enabled Electronic Speed Controls) with brushless DC motors that can handle more than twice this many amps and generate more than 20 units of horsepower — all in a setup that fits in the palm of your hand. Moreover, these incredibly capable power systems far outperform their brushed motor predecessors and can power R/C cars from 0 to 60 in 1.6 seconds and push speeds upwards of 170 MPH. (Move over, Tesla.)
Configurable ESCs and High-Performance Brushless Motors for Multiple Markets
The ability to pack a virtual ton of power into a relatively tiny package makes these innovations incredibly attractive to a broad segment of customers seeking motion control solutions for industrial, consumer, and hobbyist markets. And Castle Creations, our US-based subsidiary, is helping customers meet market demand.
Castle’s roots are in the radio-controlled hobby sector, where it’s established itself over the last 24 years as a leading aftermarket specialist in low-weight, high-power, brushless DC motors and ESCs with highly configurable firmware offering advanced features such as adjustable throttle and brake curves, motor timing, data logging, and SMARTSENSETM to seamlessly transition between sensored and sensorless operation. But Castle stands out from its competitors with continuous innovation, American-made quality, and unrivaled product support.
A Wide Range of Innovative Applications Across Product Categories
For this reason, Castle has become a top solution for customers far afield from the hobby market, with applications in a wide range of products that sound like they’re straight out of sci-fi or a James Bond movie. Here’s just a few:
- 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
Designing a “Killer App” for Motion Control
Whenever customers are looking for aftermarket solutions for products that spin, fly, propel, actuate, or otherwise move, they’ll need a partner with the “killer app” for motion control.
Configurable software or fully customizable firmware serves this purpose, giving customers the freedom to select their own motor and ratchet up its performance according to their specialized needs. And having a partner with elite engineering experience in both software and hardware means that the interface between the two will be seamless and fully controllable via both PC and mobile applications.
Choosing a Partner With the Resources and Team to Truly Support You
Nine out of ten companies cannot offer their customers the insight, expertise, and support of the team behind the product in question. Once a customer purchases a product, rarely can they count on direct contact and personal support for getting their questions answered or concerns addressed. This can be one of the most frustrating and trust-damaging experiences a customer can have.
When it comes to serving their customers and treating them as true partners, Castle sets the standard. And as one of the last American manufacturers of ESC’s, customers appreciate working with a partner that speaks their language and is never more than a Zoom call away.
At Pivot International, we’re incredibly proud to include Castle among our global family of companies. With nine subsidiaries in all, we bring product development expertise across fourteen industries and 320,000 square feet of manufacturing capability to support all of your supply chain and manufacturing needs. If you’d like to learn more about how we can play a key role in fueling your success, contact us today.
Market Demand and Sales are Not the Same
How to Successfully Translate the First Into the Second
Before developing any product, it’s essential to determine the difference between whether your target market will view your product as a need vs. a want. This question needs to be addressed from several angles, which we’ll explore in this piece:
1. We’ll discuss the distinction between wants and needs.
2. We’ll examine the role of product development in successfully translating the first into the second.
3. We’ll look at the sales and marketing piece of the equation.
Market Demand vs. Sales
While demand corresponds to wants, sales correspond to needs. (And growth comes from understanding the relationship between the two.) Market demand represents the products your customers aspire to buy. Sales are the products they buy. Once this distinction is pointed out, it makes perfect sense, so why can it be easy to confuse the two? Industrial and medical market research is much harder to conduct than consumer research due to smaller and highly variable sample sizes. This means that standard statistical techniques for sample-extrapolation do not necessarily yield insight into the market in question.
To overcome this challenge, the individual or team leading the market research effort needs to have a strong technical understanding of industrial or medical products. Without it, it’s impossible to conduct interviews and gather data that gets to the bottom of industry needs and particular customer concerns.
Translating Demand Into Sales
Say that you’re confident in your research and have accurately identified market demand. You’ve gained a solid understanding of not only your target customer base but also your competition. But now, you’re facing even bigger challenges.
For instance, how will you establish proof of concept? How will you ensure that you’ll be able to develop your product and remain within your budget? How will you ensure your product not only looks great on paper but is optimized for both UX (user-experience) and DFM (design for manufacture)? How will you navigate the complexities of certification and compliance for your product? How will you distribute it?
At Pivot International, we are a one-source global product design, development, manufacturing, and supply chain partner that helps customers translate market demand into successful sales. We bring nearly fifty years of specialized experience across fourteen industries and 320,000 square feet of manufacturing capability across three continents.
Our integrative, end-to-end business model means we can help you throughout any individual part of the larger product development process. Our teams will work closely with you to take your product from proof-of-concept to distribution. Using our top talent in UX and DFM, we elevate your product design to result in an innovation that not only looks and performs flawlessly but that can be cost-effectively manufactured at scale.
Clearing the Final Hurdle
No matter how innovative or impressive your finished product may be, it’s not going to sell itself, which brings us to the final hurdle you’ll need to clear to translate market demand to sales. As we discussed earlier, industrial and medical markets pose very different challenges than consumer markets. While there are many sales and marketing principles that apply equally to all three, we’ll focus on a few key differences. Here are some things to keep in mind when crafting your sales and marketing strategy for industrial or medical audiences.
Expect your audience to be as knowledgeable and savvy about your product category and market as you are. Those in your target audience are likely to be equals with your salespeople, and possibly even industry peers. While consumer audiences often need “vertical” education since they may have limited familiarity with your product category, industrial and medical audiences need “horizontal” education. Focus on functioning as a partner and expert resource for helping your prospect gain the insight they need into your product to inform the broader buying-decision.
While consumer products come with price tags attached, industrial and medical product sales involve bids and quotes. Be prepared to receive a request-for-quote (RFQ’s) that essentially provide specifications for every nook and cranny of your product in minute detail. Although it may appear otherwise, RFQs are not made by individuals, and it is not individuals you are targeting. Sales (buying) decisions for industrial and medical products are almost always made by dedicated buying teams that will be sifting with a fine-tooth comb through your product’s benefits compared to your competitors. Because industrial and medical buying decisions involve extensive analysis of cost vs. investment thresholds and projected ROI, the final decision-makers for industrial and medical sales are rarely found among the buying team but rather on the board of directors.
Understanding the difference between demand and sales, working with a proven product development partner, and effectively marketing your product are all essential to your product’s success. If you’d like to learn more about how our teams at Pivot can help you grow your business with our one-source solutions, contact us today for a no-cost consultation.
Wholes vs. Heaps: Do You Know the Difference?
We’ve all heard the expression that “the whole is greater than the sum of its parts,” but what exactly does that mean, and why are complex systems crucial to understand for successful product development?
A “whole” is different from a “totality.” A totality is a collection of parts (a “heap”), whereas a “whole” refers to the relationships and synergy between them. A heap is a box of puzzle pieces; a whole is what happens when you put them together. We all intuitively understand this, but in practice, putting the puzzle pieces together to create the bigger picture can be challenging for even the smartest of people.
Understanding Complex Systems and Their Relationship to Product Development
The term “complex systems,” as the name suggests, refers to wholes (systems) characterized by high degrees of complexity. This complexity derives from the fact that complex systems are composed of multiple subsystems. When processes are going well, these subsystems work together in a more or less unified way, generating results that could never be created by each subsystem on its own.
While this may sound abstract, it’s a concrete principle that characterizes many of the things we’re most familiar with. For example, our body is a complex system composed of the central nervous system, the endocrine system, the circulatory system, the skeletal system, the muscular system, and so forth. The cars we drive are complex systems composed of internal combustion systems, steering systems, braking systems, temperature control systems, shock systems, and so forth. If you were to disassemble your vehicle, you’d have a “heap” (a collection of parts), not a whole (a functional unity).
Product Development is a Complex System that Requires Integrative Operations
At Pivot International, a complex systems perspective drives everything we do. By definition, product development is a complex system composed of multiple subsystems that include supply chain, compliance, project and product management, prototyping, design and engineering, manufacturing, and more. (At Pivot, we integrate each of these subsystems under one umbrella.)
Not only must these subsystems be managed, but the relationships between each of them must be integrated. This is true across business divisions or departments (the macro order) and across the various phases of product development (the micro order) for which each is responsible.
If everything and everyone isn’t on the same page, so to speak, disruptions or breakdowns in the product development process are inevitable. As the saying goes, a system is only as strong as its weakest link: break any link, and you risk losing the entire chain. This is why a partner with integrative operations is perhaps the key meta-strategy of successful product development.
How a Partner With Integrative Operations Benefits Your Business
Here are some examples of how a partnership with integrative operations can fuel your product’s success:
Increased time-savings and cost-savings: Time is money, and a one-source partner spares you the time-consuming (and costly) task of vetting multiple suppliers. And because integrative operations work to streamline all aspects of product development, this expedites the more extensive process. This translates to cost savings and faster time to market.
Greater transparency, coordination, and synergy: When every aspect of product development occurs within the same company, greater transparency, coordination, and oversight are possible. Cross-team visibility eliminates silos and illuminates blind spots. In turn, coordination and synergy increase to bring the bigger product picture into view.
High degrees of oversight: “Oversight” is just that — the ability to oversee all the various subsystems of a complex system. One-source integrative operations mean that there is no area of the business or product development process that can’t be seen, monitored, measured, and managed. This results in better quality control and means the client is never in the dark about where their product stands.
Enhanced product protection and data security: Integrative operations depend on an integrative technology stack. Variance in IT infrastructure and technology systems between different parts of the business represents a weak link that can easily break and stall product development. (And it can also make your product or company data vulnerable to a cyber attack.) A one-source product development partner offers maximum protection from these dangers.
The complex system of product development requires integrative operations to manage and profitably monetize successfully. With nearly fifty years of experience across fourteen industries and 320,000 square feet of manufacturing capability across three continents, Pivot is a proven partner behind multiple award-winning products. If you’d like to learn more about how Pivot’s one-source model can help your company achieve its growth goals, contact us today.
How Predictive Maintenance Makes for Better, Faster, More Cost-Effective Product Development
The Fourth Industrial Revolution, or what we know as Industry 4.0, has been barreling down the tracks and picking up speed for more than a decade. But the digital transformation accelerated by COVID-19 has turned the locomotive of Industry 4.0 into a high-speed bullet train. For product developers, deploying the most competitive combination of digital technologies is now the price of entry for the race to success. Among these technologies, predictive maintenance plays an essential yet often underestimated role. Let’s take a deeper dive into how essential this role can be.
Increased Efficiency and Smarter Resource Allocation
In traditional factories, industrial equipment undergoes regularly scheduled maintenance. As anyone who has owned a vehicle knows, the trouble is that machines do not always behave predictably. This means they often require diagnostic checks and repair work before their scheduled tune-ups or inspections. When this occurs with your personal vehicle, it’s an inconvenient but relatively simple affair. But when industrial equipment is on the fritz or outright fails, an incredibly costly domino-effect can occur.
There’s also the equal but opposite challenge: bringing in your vehicle for scheduled maintenance only to find there isn’t a need. Again, the time and expense are negligible for your vehicle, but industrial equipment is a different story. Considerable time and expense are often funneled into “servicing” industrial equipment that is performing perfectly and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
Fortunately, predictive maintenance puts a virtual end to these problems. As the name suggests, this technology reliably predicts the need for maintenance via data analytics. This drives dramatic resource-efficiencies through early-detection of issues and servicing of equipment only when necessary.
Flexible Production Runs to Capitalize on Real-Time Demand
Digital twinning is a vital part of predictive maintenance, and more than half a million twins of varying complexity are currently in use. Digital twinning refers to the practice of creating a virtual model (or “mirror”) of networked industrial machines that are fitted with sensors. Via a strategic combination of AI and human oversight, the virtual models essentially allow these machines to be remotely monitored, analyzed, optimized, and controlled.
At Pivot International, we are a global, full-service product development company that has made massive investments in the latest digital technologies, including two mirrored Samsung high-speed SMT lines. Because these lines mirror each other, they can simultaneously perform identical (twinned) specifications to maximize manufacturing volume. And since these lines share a server and database, our teams can simultaneously switch or adjust maintenance and manufacturing parameters. This increases equipment-security while also enabling us to scale production to help our customers capitalize on real-time demand. This mirrored technology is also essential for our customers who distribute globally. It allows them to flexibly shift production to whichever of our manufacturing facilities is closest to their shipping destination, saving them both time and money.
Cost-Savings Through Enhanced Quality Control
Quality control must be maintained with any product, but the bar becomes exponentially higher when developing an industrial, medical, or security-sensitive product. Not only are these products generally more complex than those found in consumer markets, but they also pose compliance and regulatory challenges.
A product’s complexity is often inversely correlated to unpredictable downtime, low yield (products that don’t meet quality control standards), and low productivity (extended production times). Because product developers have a vested interest in productivity, the production process is often pushed at the expense of yield.
But the monitoring capacity of predictive maintenance and the AI upon which it depends can catch quality issues the moment they occur, providing immediate feedback. This feedback allows for rapid adjustments, reduces downtime, and accelerates productivity. Predictive maintenance offers the “best of both worlds” for yield and productivity alike. This translates to significant cost savings and timely delivery of high-quality products that meet strict compliance standards.
If you’re looking to bring a new product to market, Pivot is a proven one-source partner. For nearly a half-century, we’ve been helping companies worldwide turn product ideas into commercially successful innovations. We bring the world’s top talent in design, engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain management. With product development expertise that spans fourteen industries, more than 300,000 square feet of manufacturing capability across three continents, and extensive ISO certifications, we deliver the winning solutions you’ve been looking for. Contact us today. We’d love to explore how we can help you achieve your goals and grow your business.
Determining the Best Time to Begin Product Development
Over the last six months, it has become increasingly clear that pandemic-driven disruption is not a black and white affair. While COVID-19 has brought new challenges, it has also opened new market opportunities. This may have left your company wondering if the time is right to move forward with your project development plans. To determine the answer, explore the questions below with your team.
Have we identified a proven partner with secure supply networks and extensive experience to begin a new product development project?
Even the most strategically conceived products will come to naught without consideration for the bigger picture. To bring a product successfully to market, you’ll need more than a flawless design. You’ll also need secure supply chain solutions, advanced engineering expertise, and agile manufacturing technology.
At Pivot International, we are a proven partner to companies worldwide. For nearly a half-century, we have helped clients bring innovative products to market. We are successfully leading clients across fourteen industries and six markets through pandemic-driven disruption, helping them identify and profitably act on rising demand for telehealth, industrial products, consumer tech, and more. With access to a global sourcing network and 200,000 square feet of manufacturing capability across three continents, we’re delivering solutions for a new growth era.
How prepared are we to guard against knowledge gaps and other forms of risk?
The newer your company is to the product development process, the more dependent you’ll be on your partner for guidance and risk management. For upstarts or young companies, the danger of “not knowing what you don’t know” looms large. And even for companies that have successfully brought multiple products to market, supply chain insecurity, geopolitical volatility, and economic instability can complicate the picture.
Partners with end-to-end solutions and advanced risk management strategies can effectively protect upstarts and enterprise organizations alike from knowledge gaps and other threats. Partners with integrative operations afford far greater insight, oversight, predictability, and control. When product concept, design, prototyping, engineering, manufacturing, distribution, and supply chain management are undertaken under one integrative umbrella, knowledge gaps can be eliminated and risks significantly reduced.
Can we defend against high-resource utilization and scope creep?
Any product development project worth undertaking will require a considerable investment of both financial and managerial resources. For this reason, almost all companies recognize the importance of mapping their investment costs to detailed product development plans. However, this task can be more challenging than it may appear.
For one thing, many companies do not account for the dangers of high-resource utilization. They mistakenly believe that the more resources they utilize, the faster a project will go, and the more cost-effective it will be. The exact opposite is the case, with the result that investment costs significantly exceed project estimations and budget allocations.
In addition to high resource utilization, scope creep presents yet another product development hazard. Though scope creep can occur for multiple reasons, it often stems from a breakdown between the design and manufacturing aspects of product development. Design-for-Manufacture (DFM) offers the surest safeguard against this hazard, as can a partner with formalized processes for preventing high-resource utilization.
Can we rapidly respond to shifting customer needs and fluctuating market demand?
Agile processes, structures, and operations that enable companies to pivot in response to dynamic conditions have long been important for driving ROI. But agility is now more than important; it’s imperative. Agility needs to be assessed from at least two perspectives: customer communication and supply chain.
Companies must adopt synchronous customer communication channels. This gives them a dynamic view of changing customer needs to inform the product development process. A strong social media presence (especially when combined with data analysis) can provide valuable insights into broader consumer-behavior trends for consumer markets.
Supply chain agility depends largely on adopting the latest digital technologies, including digital twinning, AI, VR, blockchain, 3D-printing, and more. These technologies play an essential role in real-time forecasting and give companies the power to rapidly scale, pivot, or even repurpose production in response to it.
Depending on the answers to these questions, now may be the right time to begin (or resume) your product development. If you’d like to learn more about how a partnership with Pivot can support your company’s growth, contact us today for a no-cost consultation. We’ll help you make your vision a reality.
Why Less Is More in New Product Design
Product designers — and, let’s face it — all of us often make the mistake of thinking that the more features something has, the better it must be. Whether we’re shopping for a new lawnmower, sound system, vehicle, or even a backyard playset for our kids, we tend to think the more options it has, the more it will deliver.
As we sometimes learn the hard way, more features don’t automatically add to a superior product design or user experience. This is critical for product developers to understand. When it comes to designing, engineering, and manufacturing a new product, less is almost always more. But finding the sweet spot of simplicity can be more challenging than it might appear.
At Pivot International, we bring nearly fifty years of experience and a proven track record of helping companies worldwide bring innovative products to market. The products we’ve played a key role in creating have received prestigious design awards, drawn international acclaim, and been wildly successful in industrial and consumer markets.
Pivot’s one-source model integrates and streamlines the many complex product development phases, including conception, prototyping, design (including DFM), engineering, manufacture, and distribution. Our teams comprise some of the world’s top design, engineering, and user experience talent. These teams work collaboratively with our clients to turn good products into great products by reaching simplicity on the other side of complexity.
As Leonardo da Vinci said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” But achieving this kind of simplicity in product development requires two critical competencies.
1. An ability to question and redefine the problem your product is intended to solve:
In 1966, a collection of manufacturing articles appeared, titled “The Manufacturing Manager’s Skills.” In this collection, a quote was included from an unnamed professor at the Industrial Engineering Department of Yale University, which said, “If I had only one hour to solve a problem, I would spend up to two-thirds of that hour in attempting to define what the problem is.”
The ability to question and redefine the problem your product is intended to solve is of paramount importance. It is also one of the most underappreciated aspects of the product design and innovation process.
Too many companies assume that they clearly understand the problem their product is trying to solve because they’ve conducted market research. While market research is essential, on its own, it can never be enough. Facts and stats can’t substitute for the ability to conceive a problem in an entirely new way — a way that shifts the focus from how to solve a problem to how to deliver the experience or outcome that is the reason for solving the problem in the first place.
2. Discerning what features to omit and which to keep:
Product development teams can easily fall prey to the temptation to create brilliant technical solutions that impress their peers and managers but are out of touch with customers’ actual needs and user experience. Design and engineering professionals who have not learned to think outside their disciplinary boxes can become fascinated with “bells and whistles” that they miss the forest for the trees.
The most talented design and engineering teams understand that knowing which features to omit is every bit as important as determining which ones to include. Both omissions and additions need to be approached in a highly strategic fashion. It’s one thing to omit a feature to cut costs or because a project is running behind. It’s another thing to consider the complexity of the big picture (user-experience, supply chain, market trends, financials, and so forth) and make strategic decisions about what features — or lack thereof — will result in a truly superior and competitive product.
When approaching this design challenge, product development teams need to think synergistically, taking a whole-systems approach. The omission or addition of even one feature has the potential to impact multiple, seemingly non-related features. It can even significantly alter the problem’s parameters as it has been defined, thus changing the product’s nature and functionality altogether. (For better or for worse.)
Instead of working from the perspective that an ideal product design has been achieved when as many features as possible have been added, challenge yourself and your team to work from the opposite perspective: The more features that can be eliminated in the service of optimizing user-experience while maximizing ROI, the closer to perfection the product will be.
Are you looking for a proven partner to help you bring a new product to market? We’d love to be part of the process. We deliver a seamless end-to-end product development process backed by multiple IEC and ISO certifications, FDA registration, UL listing, and CSA approval. Contact us today to learn more about the benefits of a partnership with Pivot and how we can help you grow your business.
Three Safeguards for Protecting Your Project from the Dangers of High Resource Utilization
At Pivot International, in our collaborative work with clients worldwide, we’ve found that most companies aim to fully utilize their product-development resources. Industry surveys show the average product-development manager attempts to maintain resource utilization above 98%. The logic goes, projects take longer when teams aren’t working 100% of the time, and an organization running on as close to 100% capacity as possible will be faster and more efficient than one that is allocating less of its resources.
This logic is deceptive and dangerous. The speed, efficiency, and output of product development are reduced when teams attempt to operate on all cylinders—no matter how high-performing they may be. While this may sound counterintuitive, it’s essential to understand, or your company won’t be able to achieve its potential growth. Pivot’s sophisticated understanding of optimally allocating and managing resources — both tangible and intangible — is one of the many areas of expertise that have made us a proven supply chain, product development, and manufacturing partner to companies worldwide.
High utilization of resources have insidious side effects which can remain easily invisible for three reasons:
1. They confuse product development with manufacturing.
Companies tend to be more familiar with highly repetitive manufacturing processes where things behave predictably as resource utilization increases. Five percent more work takes five percent longer to complete.
But unlike manufacturing processes, product development processes are highly variable and non-linear. As resource utilization increases, delays lengthen dramatically. When you add 5% more work, completing this work may take 100% longer. Many product-development teams don’t understand this and wind up overcommitted. This leads to underperformance, wasted resources, and a host of other costly problems. Ironically, these are the very problems their high resource utilization is intended to prevent.
2. They fail to factor in how queues impact economic performance.
High utilization of resources almost always leads to project queues. When partially completed work is waiting in line for capacity to become available, project duration is extended. Queues also delay the feedback that product development teams need for making timely changes to a product. Last, they impede the agility companies need to adapt to rapidly shifting demand curves and market opportunities.
It’s not that product development teams don’t know they’re creating queues; it’s that they fail to factor in the economic cost associated with them. Team must weigh queue costs against the costs of underutilized capacity to strike a balance between both.
3. They don’t account for the invisibility of work-in-process inventory.
In manufacturing, queues are composed of physical objects. When inventory doubles, it’s obvious. This is not the case with product development, where inventory is made up of many intangibles like design documentation, CAD instructions for creating 3D printed prototypes, test procedures and results, and so forth. In an engineering process, when inventory doubles, there are no tangibles to track. And since R&D inventory has to be carried at zero value to ensure accounting integrity, financial statements rarely reflect excessive inventory.
For these reasons, it’s important to buffer capacity for highly variable processes, although this is easier said than done. Despite their exposure to management studies on the dangers of high resource utilization, many product development teams insist on wringing out every last drop of capacity. Project managers can be particularly vulnerable in this regard. Putting the following safeguards in place can help to offset this tendency.
Safeguard 1: Adjust management-control systems.
In Pivot’s work with medtech companies, this might involve taking steps to align the product-testing division’s objectives with those of the discovery division. The company could, for example, reward product testing for prompt responses (measuring test-time from initiation to completion) rather than resource utilization.
Safeguard 2: Strategically increase capacity.
You can significantly reduce waiting time by adding extra resources to aspects of product development where utilization rates are 70% or more. If the medtech company did this in product testing, it could accelerate the availability of feedback. If testing can be conducted using augmented or virtual reality, capacity costs can typically be significantly reduced. (The role of digital technologies in increasing cost-effectiveness and driving growth is one of several reasons why Pivot has made such an extensive investment in these innovations.)
Safeguard 3: Limit the number of active projects.
If the medtech company couldn’t increase product testing’s capacity, an alternate approach would be to decrease the utilization rate by cutting back the number of active projects exploring adjacent market opportunities. Knowing when and where to apply the brakes to your product-development pipeline helps you tighten your focus and clarify your priorities.
If your business is looking for a proven partner for helping you bring an innovation to market, Pivot brings nearly fifty years of experience, product development expertise that spans more than fourteen industries, and 200,000 square feet of manufacturing capability. Our one-source model delivers a seamless end-to-end product development process backed by multiple IEC and ISO certifications, FDA registration, UL listing, and CSA approval. We’d love the opportunity to earn your business and help your company realize its maximum growth potential. Contact us today for a no-cost consultation.
Why Getting It Right the First Time May Not Be in the Best Interest of Your Product Development
Everyone wants to get it right the first time, and product developers are no different. While careful planning needs to go into any product development endeavor, product development — especially when the product is intended to be genuinely innovative — is a predictably unpredictable affair. Although every product goes through predetermined phases, including conception, prototyping, design, engineering, manufacturing, and distribution, new insights almost always emerge from the development process itself that can’t be seen before the fact.
This is why it’s essential to work with a product development partner that understands that an insistence on getting it right the first time can introduce more problems than it solves. To implement the learnings that the various phases of product development reveal, your partner needs to have an “innovation mindset,” flexible processes, and agile operations.
At Pivot International, we are the proven partner behind some of the world’s most innovative and award-winning products. We bring nearly a half-century of product development expertise that spans fourteen industries and manufacturing capability across three continents, including cost-effective alternatives to China-based production. Our one-source model ensures a highly integrative and agile product development process. Because we own our facilities and take a highly collaborative approach to working with clients, we deliver unparalleled levels of transparency.
The dangers of insisting on getting it right the first time are many. Let’s take an in-depth look at why this is, as well as how to avoid these hazards.
Overly strict gatekeeping processes can backfire
In an attempt to avoid making mistakes, strict gatekeeping processes are often implemented. Work on the next stage of product development cannot begin until the project passes through the gate preceding it.
The problem with this is that the process can not be seen holistically, and feedback cannot inform the process on time. As the project progresses through each gate, significant investments are made without regard for learnings that may have emerged along the way.
When the project passes through the last gate and learning is finally applied, problems are unearthed that could have been prevented earlier in the process but have now become exponentially more expensive to solve. Robust front-end practices that prevent this problem are critical to design and deploy.
Demanding early success can lock you in the box you’re trying to think outside of
Demanding success from the beginning narrows the conceptual playing field because it tends to make teams think too small and play it too safe. It’s easy to get it right the first time when you focus only on low-risk, “tried and true” solutions. But this approach is the enemy of innovation.
Tolerance for early failures at each point of the product development process can be a highly successful strategy as long as each round of learning is iteratively applied and tested. Teams that take an iterative approach and conduct early and frequent tests make more errors along the way. However, thanks to low-cost prototyping technologies, they outperform teams blindly committed to getting it right the first time because they quickly eliminate bad ideas or designs and move on to more desirable solutions.
Poor results at the early stages of each product development process are better understood not as failures but as valuable discoveries for moving the process successfully forward before extensive resources have been committed. At Pivot, our rapid-prototyping technologies give our customers the freedom and flexibility to affordably iterate and test at any point in the product development process.
Taking on the cultural challenge
It’s not only individuals who can fall prey to the temptation to get it right the first time, but also entire organizational cultures. In these cultures, the mere appearance of failure can threaten a team member’s self-esteem and their job, especially if it exposes knowledge or skills-gaps in the organization.
It is the job of company leaders to set the tone for their organization and lead by example, not only by tolerating failure but by actively encouraging it when it’s in the service of innovation. Leaders who can draw connections between apparent failures and consequent growth will go far in fostering a culture where “strategic failure” becomes a badge of honor rather than a source of embarrassment or anxiety.
Overcoming the temptation to get it right the first time might be considered a core-competency of product development teams, and companies of all kinds, for that matter. The ability to use the product development process itself to generate new insights and iteratively implement and test them is part and parcel of innovation. If you’re looking to bring an innovative product to market, we’d love the chance to explore how a collaborative partnership with Pivot can help you meet your business objectives and make your mark. Contact us today.
Avoiding Pitfalls and Overcoming Roadblocks: How to Move Your New Product Development Forward or Get it Back on Track
If your product hasn’t achieved the success you’d hoped for; you’re not alone. According to the international management firm Booz Allen Hamilton, 66% of new products fail within two years, and Doblin Group reports that up to 96% of all innovations fail to recoup their investment capital cost.
But becoming one of these statistics isn’t inevitable. New product development failure is almost always related to common pitfalls and roadblocks that many companies haven’t had the experience to anticipate accurately. At Pivot International, we help companies detour around these obstacles to successfully commence new projects and get existing projects back on track. Regardless of what stage of development your product is currently in — concept, prototyping, design, engineering, manufacture, or distribution — we bring nearly 50 years of experience across over fourteen different industries to move your project forward.
So, what are some of the most common pitfalls and roadblocks that companies fail to foresee that can put their new product development project in danger? Let’s take a look.
Top Ten Reasons for New Product Development Failure
- Little to no research on the product or the market has been conducted, or the product makes claims it cannot substantiate.
- Too much of the budget was invested in product creation, leaving too little to launch, market, and sell it.
- The product’s key differentiators and advantages have not been communicated in a way its target audience can understand.
- The product defines a new category and customers lack sufficient context for understanding how it meets their needs.
- Sales teams are not well educated about the product and lack confidence in it or investment in selling it.
- The marketing campaign is unfocused, lackluster, or poorly executed.
- The product is functionally sound but was not developed with UX (User Experience), making it unappealing to end-users.
- The product was not developed with DFM (design for manufacture), making it too costly to scale effectively.
- Supply chain challenges result in costly product launch delays or prevent first-to-market advantage in a fiercely competitive environment.
- The product manufacturer lacks the agility and technology to adjust production in response to unpredictable demand.
Now that we’ve identified the top ten pitfalls and roadblocks that can lead to new product development failure. Let’s talk about how to avoid them:
Take Inventory
Take inventory of the obstacles above to determine if and how they apply to your challenges. Especially keep a keen eye out for one of the most fundamental reasons for failure: a product does not compellingly serve an identified customer need. (The name of the game here is research, research, research.)
Educate and Empower Your Sales People
It should go without saying that your sales teams need to be thoroughly educated about a product. It’s not enough for them to get specs and pricing sheets. They also — where it makes sense — need to interact directly with products to get a first-hand feel for them.
Encourage your sales teams to follow the action and focus on ‘What’s Next’ to identify and act on emerging opportunities. Help them conceive themselves as change agents for introducing products that stand to open up new product categories, advance the industry, and innovate new markets.
Perfect Your Marketing Mix
Optimize your marketing channels and platforms as customized for your target demographic. Identify the sequence and combination of touchpoints that advance various demographics down the sales funnel and lead to the highest conversion rates. Then, optimize the customer journey accordingly.
Reach Out to Experts
When all is said and done, experience counts. Many companies, especially startups, can’t be faulted for a less than smooth product development process, a bumpy product launch, or less than stellar product sales. (Even giants like Coke have launched products that turned out to be epic flops, so there’s certainly no shame in the struggle.)
Joining forces with a trusted partner with extensive experience in understanding the many different aspects of bringing a winning product to market can pay significant dividends.
At Pivot, we bring a wealth of specialization that can all but eliminate many of the top risks outlined early in this article. For example, our design and engineering teams leverage the latest UX best practices to help create products whose user-appeal is equal to their flawless performance. By making DFM an integral part of our product development process, you can rest assured that your product is optimized for supply chain considerations and can be cost-effectively scaled and brought to market without delay.
Our extensive investment in advanced digital technology and agile manufacturing means we can rapidly scale production to help your company capitalize on spikes in demand or protect your ROI when demand is down. Because we’ve continued to experience explosive growth and expand our locations and company-owned facilities worldwide, we’re able to meet your needs, wherever you may be.
Contact us today and learn more about how we can help you avoid pitfalls and overcome roadblocks to commence a new product development project or get existing projects successfully back on track.
Think Like an Investor When Pitching a Product
When it comes to launching a new product successfully, businesses need to understand they’re building two products and two cases: one for customers and one for pitching a product to investors. The savviest of businesses never lose sight of which audience they’re talking to and the differences between them.
While it’s almost certain your customers are the group you know the most about, the second can ultimately have just as big — or bigger — impact on your product’s success. This is why it’s so important to think like an investor when pitching your product.
At Pivot International, we bring a nearly 50-year track record of helping companies worldwide design, develop, manufacture, and deliver successful products that are as compelling to investors as they are to end-customers. To ensure supply chain security, flawless product performance, and maximum market viability, we leverage advanced digital technologies, industry-leading talent that spans fourteen industries, and 200,000 square feet of scalable manufacturing capability across three continents. (Including cost-effective alternatives to China-based production.)
Understanding the Differences Between Investors and End-Users
Like end-users, investors are interested in the classic sales question, What’s in it for me? But in most ways, the similarities end there. Investors aren’t so much interested in your product, per se, as in the opportunity for ROI it represents. This begs the question of how to craft a persuasive narrative that will give your company the best possible chance of impressing your investor and securing capital.
Because investors are looking at so much more than just your product in assessing the opportunity for ROI, you’ll need to tell a story that communicates your company’s bigger picture. Here are some areas to heighten your focus.
The Whats and Whys of Pitching a Product to Investors
While it’s worth repeating that your product should not be the primary object of emphasis, it’s certainly your entry point into the larger conversation. With this in mind, you’ll need to speak concisely to two interrelated product questions.
First, what is your product, what problem does it solve, and what market opportunity does it allow the investor to capitalize on? And second, why is your product different enough from your competitors to tip the scales in your favor?
Keep in mind that you’re just laying the runway here with a high-level overview. This isn’t about a comprehensive presentation of your product, target market, or ROI opportunities. Rather, this is more about developing and delivering a killer “elevator speech” in a somewhat extended form. This portion of your presentation should function as an intriguing “teaser” for everything that follows.
Risks and Barriers to Delivery
Not demonstrating both the technical and market viability of your product over your competitors is a non-starter. But there’s another investor hurdle you’ll need to clear: risk.
Successful investors are among the risk-savvy people on the planet. Even as early as February of 2020, well before the US had implemented quarantine measures and the magnitude of the pandemic had yet to be understood, investors were expressing concerns related to supply chain risk. These concerns haven’t been put to rest. If anything, they’ve only grown.
It won’t be enough to convince your investor that you’ve got a winning product and sizable market demand for it. You’ll also need to convince them that your product can be cost-effectively delivered despite significant sourcing disruption.
In other words, come to the table prepared to provide evidence that you’re working with a proven supply chain partner that can reliably surmount these challenges and, therefore, dramatically reduce risk. For example, if you’re pitching an investor on a medtech product, you’ll likely need to demonstrate that you’ve identified China-alternative manufacturers in order to comply with recent regulatory changes.
Revenue Opportunities and Supporting Quantitative Data
Every portion of your presentation up to this point is just the springboard for a deeper dive into the nitty-gritty of the investment opportunity as communicated in hard numbers. Now is the time to provide solid data that quantifies the ROI your investor can expect to earn.
This includes supporting data related to industry profit margins, your pricing and revenue model, current users, and more. Pay particular attention to scalable systems; you may have to reduce the cost of customer acquisition.
A Documented Succession Plan
While you’ll already have a business plan, a succession plan can increase the opportunity-appeal for investors. Companies that are already prepared for the handoff to an investor are typically multiple times more profitable than those that don’t.
Knowing how to think like an investor and tailor your pitch accordingly, you’ll have a much better chance of securing funding. Regardless of where your company might be in the product development process — whether that be a proof-of-concept, prototyping, design, engineering, manufacture, or distribution — Pivot is a trusted partner for helping you move successfully forward.
To learn more about how we help companies seize opportunity and bring winning products to market in challenging times, contact us today.
