Design for Manufacturing

Understanding the New Product Introduction Process

The right NPI delivers a range of benefits, including a better understanding of the market and target audience, improved product quality and durability, lower overall development costs, enhanced risk management plans, quicker speed to market, and improved manufacturability. No matter what your company produces, improving your NPI process can help enhance brand loyalty and boost your bottom line.

Introducing any new product to the market can be daunting. It involves careful planning, collaboration across different teams, continued customer feedback, and different iterations. In today’s competitive market, an idea's success or failure is often determined by its new product introduction (NPI) program. This includes all the steps that are planned and executed to develop, refine, and bring a new product to market.

What Does It Take To Design A Product?

What Is the New Product Introduction Process?

New product introduction (NPI) is the step-by-step process of taking an idea from the concept stage through a working prototype and into mass production and commercialization; a process we refer to as ‘design-for-manufacturing’. NPI focuses on the product from a manufacturing viewpoint, which differs from product development life cycle management. Though often associated with new product development (NPD), NPI specifically addresses the stages after initial product development.

A well-defined NPI process is crucial for significantly improving the chances of your product's success. Whether launching something entirely new or adding features to an existing product line, introducing new processes into your operations can be stressful. The NPI process involves various steps that ensure all teams communicate effectively and follow necessary rules and regulations.

The NPI process can be found across various industries, such as consumer electronics, medical devices, and more. For example, it is very common for smartphone manufacturers to release a new version of their flagship product on an annual basis. As each new iteration of Apple’s iPhone or Samsung’s Galaxy launches, product designs may change, internal components are upgraded, etc. As a result, the manufacturers’ systems and processes adapt to accommodate these changes.

Streamlining Product Development with Design for Manufacturing

Why Is NPI Important?

Utilizing NPI establishes a framework that helps organizations turn an initial concept into a finished product. It also allows businesses to enhance their manufacturing efficiency, lower overall development costs, accelerate the time to market, and enhance the product’s quality. Effective NPI processes involve close collaboration between team members, allowing for comprehensive risk assessments and identifying potential issues before they become a larger problem. Engaging contract manufacturers early in the process can also contribute to a smoother transition from development, further reducing costs and risks.

It is crucial for companies aiming to stay competitive in their market. By accelerating the time to market, the organization gains a competitive edge over others, expanding its market share and increasing its revenue. It also empowers these companies to efficiently meet the ever-evolving needs of their target market while leveraging technological advancements. More importantly, NPI is crucial in material forecasting, ensuring supply chain management and inventory control are optimized for the production line. It helps minimize waste while ensuring companies remain flexible and responsive to fluctuations in market demand.

The Steps In the New Product Introduction Process

Step 1: Define (Initial Idea)
Step 2: Feasibility/Product Definition
Step 3: Develop
Step 4: Validate/ Detailed Design
Step 5: Manufacturing Ramp/Pre-Production (Validation/Testing)
Step 6: Evaluation/Manufacturing

When creating a new product, many moving components must be managed simultaneously. Every step should be carefully monitored, beginning in the design stage and continuing through the initial launch of the product. NPI helps streamline these operations.

The exact steps involved in new product introduction vary from business to business and project to project. However, the goal remains the same: to minimize waste throughout the process, avoid miscommunications, improve production speed, and save money.

Multiple steps are involved in taking a product to the market. This can be anywhere between five to seven stages. Teams track their progress and perform assessments at regular intervals to make sure the project is headed in the right direction. At the end of each step, a senior management team or critical stakeholders make an up-or-down decision in a formal review, often called a gate. The typical NPI approach has six steps, with five gates. These are:

Step One: Idea Generation

The first stage of NPI is where a new product idea begins. This step involves generating ideas for new products or product improvements. Ideas come from various sources, such as customer feedback, market research, or brainstorming sessions.

Getting the concept wrong at this early stage can waste time and increase opportunity costs. Making the wrong sourcing decisions, including when sourcing a contract manufacturer, can lead to problems later, such as cost overruns, schedule delays, or product quality issues. This is why risk assessment should also be included in this stage to better grasp what may happen in later stages. Once these are in place, a company can then move forward to the next step.

Step Two: Initial Product Conceptualization And Feasibility

The next step is to define a product's parameters and determine its feasibility, culminating in a design brief deliverable. This may also be called “scoping” or concept development. A dedicated team digs deeper into customer needs, creating a detailed assessment of the new product’s technical, market, and business aspects and determining its core functionality.

Often, this stage is a make-or-break process for ensuring a successful product, so it is vital that a company does not rush through this stage. This is where adhering to Design for Excellence Practices, such as Design for Manufacturing (DFM) and Design for Quality (DFQ), can help reduce the potential for issues later in the process.

Developers and managers, especially the project manager, explore and define critical points of differentiation for the new product and get customer feedback on the potential design. If done incorrectly, this second step can increase time to market or cause misunderstandings between the product developers and the market they are designing for. Product development cost is also estimated at this stage, and the design specifications are fixed.

Though it might seem early, now is the time to line up a contract manufacturer or several before the ramp-up period. The company should also have a design brief that outlines the exact specifications, considering all the parameters explored earlier. The more detail included in this brief, the easier it is for the design and manufacturing team to produce a working prototype and the final product. Once the product is deemed feasible, the concept moves into the next stage.

Step Three: Further Product Concept Development

At this stage, the company invests substantially in the project while the team continues to determine the proposed new product’s manufacturability, or Design for Manufacturing (DFM). It is at this stage that industrial design studios such as Gecco Vision can get involved. Guided by a detailed design brief, the team and the designer explores concepts that may or may not hold promise. Factors such as the intended manufacturing processes, budget constraints, and a marketability guide also direct this process.

Maintaining open communication between teams or the client, while important, needs to be balanced. Creating the right product means integrating client input, but excessive input may stifle the design team’s creativity.

This is critical for reducing market risk and optimizing performance, as well as minimizing other costs while maximizing profitability. The initial design team will begin working together with other teams to review supply chain management.

This stage also justifies the company’s investment in the product’s development. The team or teams are required to create a detailed business plan, which usually involves intensive market research while proving a product’s feasibility. As part of this research and planning, the team thoroughly explores the market landscape and where the proposed product fits within it. They also create a financial model for the new offering, including pricing.

By the end, the company should have initial design concepts, sketches and renderings, and the basic structural components of the new product.

Step Four: Validation And Detailed Design

During this stage, the focus is on the detailing the product design . Further design refinement, concept detailing, and validation of structural and functional components continue throughout, culminating in a well-designed initial prototype. By the end of this step, senior management should have a clear idea of what they are investing in and how it will perform in the marketplace.

Communication and collaboration intensify as a client’s production engineers work with the design team to ensure alignment between design vision and manufacturability, optimize a product’s structural integrity, and consider production capabilities.

This is a crucial validation step, offering insights into real-world dimensions and use cases while informing engineering adjustments. Mockups are created using 3D CAD data before an initial prototype is created. As adjustments are made, further prototypes are built, until the prototype is nearly complete and works like the real thing. Usually, teams try out the product’s prototype, making changes based on customer feedback before trying again. Once this stage is over, making big design changes gets expensive, so it is vital to take the necessary time to test and improve every detail.

At the same time, teams in marketing, sales, and manufacturing work on setting up the launch and production systems for the new product. They might also start trying out initial marketing strategies. Program Management could oversee this step, or sometimes, it's handed over to the production team. The best NPI processes involve bringing in these teams even before the Detailed Design stage, but it's still beneficial even if it happens later.

Step Five: Manufacturing Ramp-Up And Pre-Production

Validation and testing are all about making sure the prototype does what it's supposed to do. It's also about checking if customers and markets like the product and seeing if the financial plan makes sense. If a company wants to start making an already existing product, this is where they jump into the NPI process.

In this step, the team puts everything it has learned from customers in the Development stage to the test in real-life situations. If anything in the business plan or prototype needs fixing, this is the last chance to do it. The pilot build is also made during this process. A bill of materials (BOM) is created, listing all the parts needed. As the volume of work increases, the design team grows larger. The company ramps up manufacturing services to ensure the design is high-quality, resulting in high yields. Procurement will also play a large role in ensuring the materials needed are acquired smoothly.

Support may be extended to clients lacking in-house manufacturing capabilities by encompassing design detailing, tooling, and process optimization in collaboration with the company’s manufacturing partners.

The teams also double-check their marketing strategy now, as this step comes directly before the product hits the market. The company also ensures that all the tools, jigs, and fixtures have been made correctly. This will eliminate any potential issues as production continues to increase. Often, companies do quality checks here to make sure the product meets all the standards that customers are hoping for. If necessary, more tweaks will be made to improve the manufacturing process.

The marketing team often carefully monitors the attitude and collects feedback on the process in case any critical issues are detected by customers. They can then communicate this feedback to the manufacturing and design teams.

Step Six: Evaluation And Manufacturing

In this step, the team focuses on everything needed to introduce the final product to the market, often referred to as a product launch. This involves creating marketing and sales strategies (or training the sales team if needed) and making substantial investments in the manufacturing company (or your own company if manufacturing isn't outsourced). They start putting plans in action for manufacturing and customer support. If the manufacturing company embraces continuous improvement, it will strive to produce top-notch products.

Benefits of the New Product Introduction Process

There are many benefits to having a pre-defined NPI process and clearly defined roles prior to starting. These include:

Create A Product With Exceptional Design

By following a structured NPI process, companies can effectively manage the complexities of bringing a new product to market, ensuring it meets customer expectations and achieves commercial success. This approach not only accelerates time to market but also enhances product quality and manufacturing efficiency. As a result, businesses can secure a competitive edge and drive growth.

Increased Manufacturing Efficiency

An organization’s NPI process can help avoid manufacturing inefficiencies and create smoother product development and design processes. This allows the product to reach market shelves faster, increasing revenue and decreasing overhead costs.

Enhanced Product Quality

Every company wants to produce high-quality products, but a poorly executed design for manufacturing process can lead to design flaws and quality issues. When multiple team members are looking at a product, but fail to communicate well, they may miss things or make mistakes that go unnoticed until too late. This is why NPI is vital.

Lower Costs

For anyone managing a business, excessive delays and material wastage can inflate operational expenses. Employing an efficient new product introduction process can mitigate these challenges by minimizing time spent on redundant prototypes and frequent redesigns. Furthermore, utilizing a product lifecycle management platform can streamline communication across teams, curbing waste and mitigating the high costs associated with a decentralized bill of materials management approach.

Fast Time to Market

Swiftly entering the market is crucial when launching a new product. It's vital to secure the product’s spot before competitors swoop in while steering clear of bottlenecks and hiccups in the approach. A clearly outlined process for introducing new products guarantees minimal delays before hitting the market shelves.

Gecco Vision helps clients take their ideas from design briefs to ideation and concept development. We work hard to create design concepts that fit your company’s original idea, then take it to the next step with 3D CAD data, engineering details, and initial prototypes. As we work with our clients, we also safeguard their product’s quality by liaising with manufacturing partners, especially if these are third-party manufacturing sources. There is always an inherent risk of cutting corners, as the manufacturer’s objectives might not be 100% aligned with a client’s objectives. By ensuring alignment between production processes and client requirements, we mitigate the risks of compromising product usability and quality.

Design is integral to creating a successful product. Whether you are seeking to break new ground or enhance a successful product line, Gecco Vision believes understanding our partners’ unique vision and culture leads to the best outcomes. With our expertise and passion for design, we are committed to telling your story in a compelling way and making your product a success.

Ready to turn your concept into a reality? Contact Gecco Vision today to see how our expert design team can tailor unique, efficient, and market-ready products for you. Let’s innovate together!