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You Have Your Idea!

You have a fantastic idea. You have identified your industry niche. You know what it should look like, you know who should use it, you know your unique selling proposition and, importantly, you have some money.

Now, how do you bridge the gap between having an idea and actually breathing life into a fully functioning hardware product? Be warned, journeying into the world of manufacturing may bring all sorts of uncertainties and upsets.

Creating a Prototype

Your first step should always be prototyping. Building alpha prototypes (10-20 units) with an experienced contract manufacturer will create a better, stronger design, and give you the confidence to deal with any manufacturer, anywhere in the world for your volume build.

A fledgling company, no matter how well-funded, can’t afford to hire a purchaser, a shipping expert, a CAM engineer, a new product introduction engineer, a quality engineer and a design for manufacture (DFM) expert.  However, working with an experienced company to build your product should give you access to all of this expertise.

Building alpha prototypes will help you:

  • Find design errors.
  • Build a manufactural
  • Make cost effective tweaks.
  • Create your demo.
  • Learn about manufacturing.
  • Access DFM knowledge.

Building a Prototype Saves You Money

Serious hardware developers spend so much time and energy to develop their prototype is the cost.

Prototyping allows you to make all the mistakes where it will cost you the least amount of money. It may be tempting to head straight for large volume, where unit costs are lower, but the risk of encountering costly mistakes is far greater. I advise, learn how to drive in your uncle’s 1997 Mazda 352, then take the Porsche out!

 *Estimations based on 2L, 80mm2 design with 200 components built with MTC.

The table above shows that while you can start your build at any stage, the cost of having to redesign increases with the quantity. Tooling costs and labour time will all add to the bill. It’s worth remembering that a manufacturer won’t build on credit, they will look for upfront payment. This cost is significantly less at the alpha prototype stage.

Learn From Your Mistakes.

There are bound to mistakes along the way. It is important that you use this experience to not only better your current project, but to improve your professional experience, learning to deal with:

  • Manufacturing steps
  • Understanding costs
  • New product introduction (NPI) reports
  • Manufacturing engineering questions (EQs)

As prototyping involves learning from your mistakes, having the right teacher, with the experience and knowledge you need, is important. Look for ‘real’ contract manufacturers that value transparency, where you can expect professional results for your product and who are willing to give advice. Also, consider the time zone and language of your manufacturer. Shipping delays, late night phone calls and cultural misunderstandings are some of the most common pitfalls of using manufacturers who are geographically far away.

Prototyping does take more time and effort, but it’s certainly less expensive overall, and you will always learn something new.

I started a company off the back of these learning experiences, recognising that there’s an opportunity to help people with their prototyping and that it was a lot more complex than it needed to be.

Mint Tek Circuits is a company that helps hardware developers and inventors to build and functionally test their ideas faster, more reliably and more cost effectively.

The resident PCB Nerd at Mint Tek Circuits, Tony simplifies advanced aspects of PCB design and technologies. Follow him @MintTekCircuits
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