When it comes to product development, delays are never good. They can drive up costs, cut into profit, and detrimentally impact consumer satisfaction. So, here’s how you can avoid them.
Product Development Plan
In order to avoid delays you need to know what needs to get done and when, and you need to hold your team accountable for deadlines. The easy way to do that is to develop a timeline. An extra trick? Give your team a date that is earlier than the date you’ve given the public. It will give you a bit of leeway should something go wrong.
Automate processes as much as you can
The bottom line? Automating saves time. If you don’t have to manually do something, don’t. Continuous deployment and configuration management tools help you save time when you are on a time schedule and prevent unnecessary delays.
Don’t stick to a single development plan
Your development plan should be product-driven. Companies often have a single, across the board development plan, but this isn’t necessarily the best way to do things. More often than not this causes organizations to develop a tunnel vision toward product development that does not fit changing customer needs. You will want to be able to alter a development plan based on market demands, customer needs, and, of course, time constraints.
Research optimal batch size
When you are trying to get a new product on the market, you need to decide how much of the product you are going to produce. Don’t just assume that a large batch (or a small one, for that matter) is a good idea. Do the research. Consider both holding costs and transaction costs. For work-in-progress development models, small batches are almost always a better idea, and can help you save time.
Pivot International is a product design, development, and manufacturing firm with extensive experience in the medtech industry. If you are interested in engineering a new product or updating an existing product, contact us at 1-877-206-5001 or request your free consultation today.
