ProductWhys
Q: Are your products getting to market fast enough?
A: Of course not! We have yet to find a client in today's world who can truthfully say, "Getting our products to market any faster than we do wouldn't benefit our bottom line."
There are two basic phases to bringing new products to market. Phase One is deciding what product to produce. Phase Two is developing the chosen product to get it ready for market.
As a product development consulting and technology company, we have been involved in countless product design and engineering projects. Over the years, we have seen product development technology improve substantially, particularly in the area of performance simulation.
Automobile crash simulations, for example, that once took many months to complete are now simply a matter of routine. In fact, very few actual vehicles are crash-tested. This trend has resulted in much less time devoted to passing occupant safety standards. Likewise, simulation for manufacturing processes, product durability and mechanical characteristics, as well as other performance parameters, are now being used to cut the time required to develop and deliver robust products to the marketplace.
A major consideration for improving time to market is in applying new methods to the early phases of deciding what product to produce. Typically, organizations manage a portfolio of potential product concepts and innovations. It is also typical, however, that those same organizations are without an accelerated method (short of an executive mandate) of choosing which products to carry forward into actual development.
Today, there are several excellent methods for increasing the effectiveness of the "fuzzy front end" of product development. Ethnographic research, for example, is a particularly powerful way to capture and interpret user interactions and consumer responses. Combining this critical research with insightful industrial design, a truly cross-functional team can efficiently transition the product into the next phases of development. By integrating these resources earlier into the development process, organizations can make measurable improvements in time to market and product success rates.
We are currently engaged in exciting work that targets increasing the rate of front-end concept generation and decision-making. By applying simulation and optimization technology in ways that are decidedly non-traditional –making use of stochastic methods, for example – we anticipate significant gains can be made in early-phase product development processes.
Currently available research methods combined with noteworthy technical innovations in conceptual design tools hold dramatic potential for organizations to make clear improvements in shortening time to market – especially as they relate to concept portfolio development and decision-making, instead of execution-phase product development. As a result, companies that find ways to truly accelerate their fuzzy front ends will score nicely on their decidedly "un-fuzzy" healthy bottom lines.
For more answers to key questions about your product design initiatives, please email us at pdsales@altair.com.
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