Over the past year or two, Key Tech has taken advantage of improvements in the usability and functionality of online tools like blogs, webinars, and social networking opportunities to share information quickly and easily. Over the same period, we’ve observed dwindling attendance at industry conferences. So, where is everyone? Are others spending more time online and less time traveling to conferences? This seems to be the trend among your responses.

It’s no surprise that the primary source for identifying new technologies and business partners is still referrals from trusted relationships. However, after referrals, online search engines have eclipsed conferences as the favorite second source. While conferences seem to be a close second to search engines when people are asked about all of their sources, it’s not even close when considering BEST sources.

Most respondents still look to referrals, search engines, conferences, and print publications as sources for new business ventures. It’s what we know, and it’s also what we trust. But, gaining and giving trust is easier for some than others. And, because of the high popularity and relatively low cost of using Google, blogs, webinars, and social media, some former conference attendees have apparently opted for these newer venues, particularly in the current economic climate.

Do you agree with the respondents? Where do you go to identify new technologies you might like to use, acquire, or license? What are your best sources to identify new business partners, such as service providers, licensing partners, and other collaborators? Feel free to share your two cents in the comments area below.

What is your primary scouting responsibility?

Where do you look to find new technologies or new business partners ?

Where is your BEST SOURCE?

What is that “everything else”?

It includes marketing, legal, manufacturing, operations, quality assurance, sales, distribution, customer service, and more.  And if it’s a regulated medical device, then there are also regulatory and reimbursement issues that are critical to the ability to sell a product and that directly affect price points.  Most of these issues need to be addressed prior to or at the same time as the technology development.

At this point of a presentation, I know I’ve lost most of the technical inventors in the audience, because when you say words like “marketing”, “legal” and “regulatory” to technology types, they often hear “wah, wah, wah”.   So I won’t go on any longer.  Just know that if you are undertaking this kind of development, you need to manage far more than just developing technology, and your plan and your team should be ready to address all of these factors.

Being in product development, we constantly want to know our constraints. How big is our playground? As children, this was considered quite annoying to our parents and teachers. Now that we’re grown-up, we find that it is no less annoying to our clients and vendors, not to mention our spouses. But, that’s not to say it isn’t extremely valuable.

Maybe you haven’t considered data format compatibility or compliance with IEC 60601 standards. That’s why our first step is to try to flesh out the Product Specification.  

What is a Product Spec?

The product specification document provides the set of guidelines a product will be tested against once development is complete. It is effectively the contract to which all parties will be held. Perhaps that contract is between marketing and engineering or customer and consultant, but it defines what the product will do, how it will function, how much it should cost, and everything else about the product. The primary benefit of writing the product specification is to ensure that everyone involved has considered all the factors, agreed upon the trade-offs, and knows what is expected. Therefore, the specification should be carefully worded, unambiguous, and with criteria that can be objectively evaluated.

Although writing a product specification may sound straightforward, it can be difficult to articulate certain aspects of the design or to nail down the range for acceptance. However, spending the time and effort to complete it up-front can easily prevent expensive design changes down the road.

Perhaps the best way to communicate the subtleties of the specification structure is through examples. Of course, because of confidentiality I cannot provide the specifications from any of our projects, but I can write a simple, hypothetical spec for a common product. Since you’re likely reading this post at a computer, I’ll write an example for development of a pair of computer speakers.

Definitions

The most fundamental concept to understand is the difference between a requirement and a desire. In this case, words matter quite a bit. We use the following conventions in our terminology:

Shall, will, or must:  Requirement is needed for the success of the product. Variation from “shall, will or must” will require product specification revision.

Should: The specification should be met unless another arrangement is agreed upon in writing by the Project Manager and the stakeholder.  Documentation of the other arrangement must be included in the project file. Product specification revision is not required. 

May: Not required but would be desirable.

An example to show the difference between shall, should, and may:

This example highlights the needs and desires of all of the stakeholders:

• Marketing has identified that users want a way to know if the speakers are ON.
• The Industrial Designers like the appearance of a single LED near the base of the speaker because it is simple and easy to understand because it is commonly used to denote Power, but this choice is not related to branding or a related family of products so it is not a requirement.
• Engineering may identify an off-the-shelf volume knob that is lit when powered which removes the need for the LED and perhaps some additional internal electronic components.

Because of the definitions, changing from the LED to an illuminated knob would only require notification of the Project Manager, who should probably consult with the Industrial Designers, but it does not require changing the specification. Furthermore, while a preference has been shown for green, any color would satisfy the spec.

Output in the specification

1.    The user shall have a means to identify that the device is ON.

2.    The device should have a single LED that is ON when Power is ON.

3.    The Power LED may be green.

Something as simple as an LED can really have an impact much greater than anticipated. This example shows how the complicated considerations of all of the stakeholders can be communicated and represented in a few precise sentences.

Defining a detailed product specification up-front forces all of the stakeholders to think about the real functionality and identity of the finished product, even before the designers and engineers have put real effort (read: time and money) into the development. Often, the process of creating the spec can eliminate a lot of the dead-end design paths before they begin. They also ensure that the finished product will meet everyone’s expectations.

Hopefully, this helps identify some of the intricacies of the wording in a product spec. Every project is different, so it’s not simple to create a template or checklist to consider every possibility. Asking questions helps a lot, although I try to refrain from conjuring my inner 3-year-old, “Why? Why? Why? Why?”. 

Which do you choose?

There will always be companies professing to offer competitive products or services that are “just as good” as yours. You know they’re not, but can your prospective customers tell the difference between you and your competition? Maybe they’re cheaper or have better looking product images, but yours is the solution they should choose. Can you make that distinction to win the project outright?

Give your device something to shout about

For many products, design is something of an afterthought. Engineer a device with high-tech specs, give it a shell and send it on its way. But, if you’re selling a product and the best features are under the hood, perhaps there are ways for you to highlight those features another way. Even if you’re selling a high-quality oscilloscope destined for the lab, you could still use high-quality knobs and add color to the housing to make yours stand out among the gray rectangles in the catalog.

Improve the user interface

A device with a complicated or convoluted user interface can harm a product as much as inferior performance specs. Although it never gets enough press in the advertising, don’t overlook the importance of an easy to use interface and user-friendly prompts. Aim to create a device that doesn’t even need a user manual. Many people won’t look at one until they get stuck anyway, so to prevent them from doing something inadvertently, it’s probably best to anticipate their impatience.

Zig when they zag

If your competitors are all focused on achieving the fastest sample time or the highest diagnostic accuracy, perhaps they’re leaving an undiscovered market in their wake. Can you reach a set of previously ignored customers that are looking for a solution that doesn’t need to be the fastest or the most accurate, but it does need to be cheap and easy to use by an untrained assistant?

If you’re the market leader, and your competitors are at your heels, there are worse problems to have (you could have no market at all…). But, differentiating yourself from the “me, too” competition is a tough job. It’s always easier to copy than to innovate, but you don’t want to wait for them to fly past you just to make your job easier, do you?

Further advances in microfluidics technology development will educe the most profound breakthroughs in medical diagnostic and therapeutic devices — and ultimately improve patient care. Microfluidics chips enable miniaturization of common macro-scale diagnostic devices down to microliter-level hand-held “lab-on-a-chip” devices. Smaller devices enable use at the point of care, and in certain cases, at home with the patient.

The technical advantages of lab-on-a-chip devices, as commonly known, include smaller sample size, higher throughput, faster analysis, and improved accuracy. Certainly, microfluidics diagnostic devices exist on the market today, but there still is significant untapped potential. For example, recent advances in micro fabrication techniques will enable micro pumps and valves to be located directly on the microfluidic chip, instead of requiring macro-scale components to drive the microfluidic flow.

The challenge for microfluidics is bridging the complex gap between R&D and production. Aside from the basic science employed to monitor the analyte, such as ultrasound or advanced optics, the primary challenge is miniaturizing the surrounding electronics and fluid controls, then integrating them seamlessly with the backbone of the device, the microchip.

For microfluidics devices to be successful, it is imperative for design teams to incorporate experts at all points along the value chain, from concept to design to manufacturing, such that the common mishaps associated with transitioning a design from the micro chip level to the macro world are overcome.

There are many ways to lose focus developing a new product, especially with so many people involved and so much at stake. By taking a disciplined approach, one can avoid many of the common pitfalls that cost money and cause delays.

1. Develop a realistic schedule and stick to it. Always keep the critical path in mind and avoid letting non-critical path items slow down the project.
2. If possible, secure sufficient funding to complete development with some extra padding to cover the unavoidable things that come up. While the product development is best done in phases, raising funding in stages is often very inefficient and more expensive because the development team loses momentum if the timing is off.
3. Develop a comprehensive specification up front and be disciplined about preventing spec creep throughout the project.
4. Obtain voice of the customer (VOC) input very early in the project, since it will focus and define the feature set outlined in the product specification.
5. Perform market research prior to embarking on the development. Developing the marketing plan late in the game inevitably leads to costly last minute changes to the product.
6. Select the development team carefully, ensuring that members of the team communicate well. If outsourcing only a part of the development, make sure that part is very well defined and verify that the outsource partner has a full understanding of the requirements.
7. Prepare a detailed project plan that identifies the overall schedule with stage gates. The plan must clearly define the criteria necessary to pass each stage gate.
8. Identify the high risk aspects of the development and address them first in the project plan, before the bulk of the work gets underway. Wasted work equals wasted money.
9. Line up manufacturing partners as early as possible and involve them in the design process – include them in team meetings, design reviews, etc.
10. Communicate, communicate, communicate. Weekly team meetings often seem unnecessary, but keeping everyone on the same page throughout the project will reduce expenses in the long run.
11. Reduce the risk of safety and environmental testing by considering it early in the design.

This list goes to 11!

Photo credit: H Assaf

1. Use Resources Efficiently

Getting a full time, highly trained engineer to do everything in the product development process may move the project along faster, but it can be more expensive. Instead of paying an engineer to perform every task, such as testing a prototype or drafting a report, maybe a lab technician or college intern can run specific parts of the test and write up the final report under the engineer’s supervision. What they cost in inefficiency they often make up for in reduced overhead.

2. Plan Ahead

Nothing wastes time and money more than having to do things over. There’s certainly plenty of iteration required in product development, but making mistakes by rushing or failing to prepare for likely problems should be avoided by taking the time to plan ahead.

3. Mind Your Perspective

While working on a project, it’s easy to get caught up in the details. At least once a week, step back to look at the big picture. Consider what you (and others) are working on and where it lays on the path between the design specification and the finished product. Is your team working efficiently? Are you spending time on minutia too early in the project? Adding (and rebuilding) the draft angles and fillets required for injection-molding are often unnecessary when using most rapid prototyping techniques.

4. Look Off-The-Shelf

Using commercial off-the-shelf parts (COTS) is a great way to reduce the schedule and cut development costs. Designing products takes time, so if someone has already spent the time and money to build a sub-system, try to take advantage. Look for at least one more supplier so you have options if they raise the price, discontinue the product, or don’t meet expectations as a vendor. Sole-source products should be avoided as much as possible, but you can spare yourself some pain by purchasing stock well ahead of time or negotiating a contract with the supplier. Of course, don’t squeeze a square peg in a round hole just to save a buck, either. If you can’t find anything to meet the requirements, and changing the requirements is out of the question, it’s time to design it yourself.

5. Conserve Energy

We have a responsibility to be environmentally conscious, but efforts to that effect can also make financial sense. Reducing the power requirements for your product can decrease the size, weight, and cost of your power supply. It can also increase the battery life for a product used in the field. Choosing the same materials or components within a product or across product lines makes recycling easier, but it also means you can save money by purchasing raw materials in higher quantities.

Keep your pipeline moving. Photo credit: Steve Knight

You can save money and continue working with a smaller budget by implementing stage gates early in the product pipeline to examine risk – technical risk, market risk, manufacturing risk, regulatory risk, supply chain risk, etc. A well managed pipeline has procedures in place to identify areas of risk and evaluate them. The process of assessing and addressing risk is an excellent, cost effective means of advancing the product pipeline in lean times.

• Technical risk is assessed with basic proof of concept prototypes and technology research that address specific aspects of the product that are considered high risk.
• Market risk is assessed with targeted market studies, limited voice of the customer (VOC) interviews, and other information gathering efforts focused on reducing risk. For medical products, preliminary research to understand the reimbursement environment for the product may be of particular importance.
• Regulatory risk can be minimized through careful planning of the submittal process and preliminary discussions with regulatory personnel. For products that will be launched into regulated environments (medical, nuclear, etc), regulatory acceptance of the product is critical to product success.
• Supply chain risk is assessed through detailed conversations with manufacturing vendors and suppliers. Risk may be significantly minimized by reducing the number of “single-point failures” required for a product such as a sole-sourced component or highly-specialized service. Trusted vendors often prove to be invaluable resources later in the NPD process and should be involved as early as possible.

The risk assessment phase of NPD is absolutely critical to maintaining the health of the new product pipeline and preventing unpleasant surprises late in the game when a product is almost ready for release. By attacking and reducing risk early, unfeasible projects are eliminated earlier in the pipeline and feasible projects become easier to forecast. It is also a relatively inexpensive phase, as compared to the balance of the development process. In weak economic times, focusing on this early phase can filter multiple concepts, preparing them for the more costly process of advancing them down the pipeline when the economy improves.