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Thank you for visiting the Pivot International blog. We are a collaborative product development, design, and manufacturing firm serving clients around the world. For more information about our services, please call us at 1-877-206-5001. We look forward to working with you.

 

The Global Chip Crisis is Driving Investment in Domestic Manufacturing

Posted: January 6, 2022

The global chip crisis appears to have reached a crescendo. Opinions vary on how long it will last. Analysts with optimistic estimates are betting on improvement in early 2022, while those with more pessimistic outlooks are placing their bets on late 2024. Though it’s likely the reality lies somewhere in between, the forecast disparity is a testament to how uncertain the situation remains.

Surprisingly, supply chain uncertainty has spawned certainty about one thing: the dangers of U.S. dependency on China-based high-tech manufacturing. “America First” is rapidly becoming a supply chain battle cry. Incentivized by massive government subsidiaries, policymakers, and industry leaders across the political spectrum are crossing party divides and beginning to function as a unified front to drive a resurgence in domestic manufacturing. But although the U.S. appears to be headed in the right direction, not even corporate recipients of massive government subsidies can move quickly enough to stop the bleeding.

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Lessons From LA and Long Beach: An Operational Experiment

Posted: December 29, 2021 Many companies are now abundantly aware that LA and Long Beach port disruption exposed potentially catastrophic cracks in the US supply network. But even as a degree of resolution is underway, it would appear that certain lessons have yet to be learned. This is concerning for two reasons. First, LA and Long Beach port disruption serve as indicators to broader supply chain risks and our ability — or lack thereof — to manage them. Second, if, as Charles Kettering maintained, “A problem well defined is half solved,” it would appear we are looking not at a problem half solved but at one further complicated by inadequately conceived solutions.
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The Top Five IoT Challenges and How to Overcome Them

Posted: December 15, 2021 Whether you’re preparing to bring a consumer, industrial, or medical IoT device to market, you can count on facing five challenges. In the end, the success or failure of your product will ride largely on whether your new product development (NPD) partner possesses the three core competencies needed for overcoming them. At Pivot International, we help companies worldwide capitalize on the rapidly expanding IoT market. We are a U.S.-based global partner that leverages DFM to integrate design, engineering, manufacturing, and supply chain management under a single company umbrella. Our single-source model fosters alignment and collaboration between stakeholders and ensures a seamless, error-free, and optimized NPD process. It also delivers unmatched project visibility and quality control, increases supply chain security, and drives significant cost savings.
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Seven Mistakes Risk Managers Make and How to Avoid Them

Posted: December 9, 2021 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.
Risk managers
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Peak Performance Optimization vs Peak Resource Utilization

Posted: December 1, 2021 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.  
Confusion
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Ten Questions for Assessing Your Product Requirements

Posted: November 24, 2021 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. 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.
Product Requirements
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Supply Chain Crisis Threatening Your NPD? There May Be a Way Forward

Posted: November 17, 2021 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.
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Rebuilding US Supply Chain: Shorter-Term Tactics and Longer-Term Strategies

Posted: November 3, 2021 Contrary to popular belief, the current supply chain crisis has not been caused by the global pandemic. As early as April 2020, Nassim Taleb — widely regarded as the world's preeminent risk analyst — argued correctly that the coming crisis would not be a pandemic-driven black swan event but rather an entirely predictable case of the proverbial chickens coming home to roost. (Chickens representing 30 years of unchecked globalism.) Nassim’s predictive power is based on insights drawn from the sciences of complexity — sciences that have long understood that complex systems such as the global supply chain are inherently fragile. The non-linearity of such systems means there is no single cause of, nor cure for, the current crisis, lying as it does at the heart of US supply chain models and infrastructure. This means that without a systemic focus on rebuilding these models and infrastructure, solutions will be short-lived and unsustainable.
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Wi-Fi 6: New Market Opportunities for Cross-Industry Applications

Posted: October 27, 2021 Wi-Fi 6 is receiving more and more press, and for good reason. Wi-Fi 6 is the future of wireless and IoT, and companies should be paying attention. According to market intelligence and advisory firm Mordor Intelligence, the global IoT market will reach USD 1,386.06 billion by 2026, up from USD 761.4 billion in 2020. As innovations relying on Wi-Fi and IoT technologies continue to increase and dominate the market, Wi-Fi 6 is unlocking new possibilities for product development.
Wi-Fi 6 Concept
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A Five-Pronged Approach to Driving Down COGS

Posted: October 21, 2021 There’s nothing complex about the concept of COGS (the cost of goods sold). 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.
COGS
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