Product Development Guide
Product Development is the process of delivering a new product or improving an existing one. While it is common for each business to customise this process, there is a general approach that can be applied to almost any product. The following guide has been refined through working with some of the most respected engineering firms in the world.
Scroll through our breakdown of the five major phases of the Product Development Journey.
Phase One: Ideation & Research
01. Ideation
A lightbulb-moment triggers an idea for a product that solves a problem, or your company decides to develop the latest addition to their range. The ideation stage represents a synergy of those initial brainstorming and conceptualisation processes through which your innovation begins to take shape.
02. Research & Insight
To establish whether your idea holds commercial promise, the initial concept is pitched against the technologies which steer the surrounding markets. Preliminary research is conducted across a variety of key categories, including: user requirements, competitor analysis, target demographics, sustainability, and regulatory compliance.
03. Funding (Round One)
This initial “seed” funding marks the first of several opportunities to finance your project’s road to market. Private investors are the most common means of support for projects in their early phases, but government grants may also be sought, especially if your project promises positive social and environmental change.
Phase Two: Project Engineering
04. Project Brief
A Project Brief communicates the goals of the project and maps out the journey to becoming a workable reality. Drafted and approved by a senior project team, the Brief should identify the scope of work, and the projected costs and timescale of each development phase. It should represent the team’s common understanding of the project objectives—getting this right has a huge impact on the likelihood of success.
05. Technical Partnerships
Following an initial consultation, your prospective product development partner should provide a Technical Proposal. Similar to a Project Brief, this document sets out the respective responsibilities within the partnership, defining project deliverables and marking the key engineering challenges in carrying them out.
06. Project Planning
A Project Plan serves to identify the most efficient means to achieve the Project Brief, taking into consideration available resources and personnel. By identifying the project’s technical and commercial hurdles accordingly, the Project Plan establishes timeframes and budgets, and anticipates the impact of unforeseen problems to mitigate against risk. The function of a Project Engineer is to manage these elements throughout the life of the Project.
07. Patent Application
Though typically sought following the assessment of a proof-of-concept prototype, patent protection can be applied for at this point, and may improve your chances of securing funding. Providing an understanding of your product within the context of existing technology, its scientific and/or engineering novelty, and associated Technological Readiness Levels, a Novelty Appraisal will establish why your product is unique, and highlight those aspects which you’ll want to protect.
08. Funding (Round Two)
Taking what may appear to be cost-reducing shortcuts in the preliminary phases of development almost invariably incur exponentially high costs and disruption down the line. To support the development of a proof-of-concept in Phase Three: Design & Engineering, however, there are a number of potential funding streams available, including government programmes and bodies (such as Horizon Europe or Innovate UK), private investment, or crowdfunding.
Phase Three: Design & Engineering
09. Product Requirements Analysis & Specification
Building on the Project Brief, the Product Requirements define what the product needs to do, covering: user experience, performance, cost, reliability, aesthetics, regulation compliance, and safety targets. The Product Specification is a living document with quantified parameters which works to define how the product will meet those Requirements. As the foundation of the Design & Engineering phase, the drafting of Product Requirements serves to bring your technical and commercial teams together, to streamline the decision-making process.
10. Proof-of-Concept Prototype (Theoretical Simulation)
This first prototype provides the means to assess the Core Technology’s performance for a particular application. A Proof-of-Concept Prototype is a primitive bench-test designed to establish the minimum viability of your product’s basic functions. In lieu of a physical prototype, theoretical investigations offer an alternative, often cost-effective method for checking the viability of your technology’s core functionality. Studies range in complexity from hand-calculations—to tackle 1-dimensional problems, such as electric vehicle range estimates—to computer-aided simulations, applied to 3-dimensional problems, such as gas flow through a filtration system.
11. Concept Design
In the Concept Design phase, the overall “product-concept” is rendered according to the parameters set out in the Product Specification. The resulting CAD drawings and models help to realise the engineering challenges latent within the product, and provide a medium in which to probe various solutions. Accompanying Concept Reviews provide a forum for making and tracking all major engineering decisions, and represent an invitation to directors and stakeholders to change or approve the design features to be taken forward into development.
12. Engineering Quality Control
There are two overlapping systems that must be established in every engineering business to uphold quality: one checks the product’s physical attributes, the other manages the corrective actions taken by the engineering team. Catching failures in design, manufacture, or process, prompting root-cause investigation and corrective action, and implementing measures against future failure, the latter, “Faults System”, represents one of the most powerful tools in product development. Having a wealth of well-documented previous projects to review can be an invaluable resource, and the process of mining them for the avoidance of repeated mistakes at this stage can drastically reduce costs and time to market.
13. Experimental Prototype Design
With Stakeholder approval of the Concept Design, the design engineer is now able to create a detailed assembly of manufacturable components, combining localised innovations with existing technologies. Multiple engineering reviews are conducted on the proposed design solutions, and look to optimise for reliability and performance, as well as cost- and time-reduction at manufacture. Outputs of the Experimental Prototype Design include the associated manufacturing drawings and quotes, a complete Bill of Materials, and cost estimates for volume production.
14. Funding (Round Three)
Armed with an Experimental Prototype Design, you are well positioned to approach potential investors. Sufficient financial support needs to be in place to carry your project through the iterative phases of prototype manufacture and testing.
Phase Four: Product Development
15. Test Equipment & Facilities
Serious thought should be given to the Test Equipment & Facilities needed to assess a product’s quality and performance. Without the capacity to take accurate test measurements and probe alternative design solutions, a product can be severely handicapped at a low level of refinement. But this bespoke, typically interchangeable equipment can require significant engineering resources and investment (for example, for the implementation of control, conditioning, and monitoring systems). Having delivered world-class test facilities in Formula 1, we are uniquely experienced in this field.
16. Design Validation
To confirm that the product does what it’s supposed to in a real-world setting as defined by the Product Requirement, the product undergoes a process of Design Validation. User-oriented tests are conducted to ensure that the product functions smoothy under operation and with acceptable ergonomics, and otherwise exudes quality. Internal assembly processes may also be assessed, with a view to reducing future build-time, while competitor benchmarking can help to identify other ways in which the product can be refined.
17. Performance & Durability Testing
Used for evidence capture and root-cause analysis, durability testing serves to reveal any weaknesses in a design by stressing the product in simulated environments. With the use of accelerated test programmes, the product durability assessment can gather a life-time’s worth of data in a short time period. Performance testing looks to determine primary characteristics and behaviours, like energy consumption, the power output of a motor, or the pressure drop through a filter.
18. Iterative Prototyping
The Product Specification is reviewed according to the insights provided by the testing of the first iteration of the experimental prototype. The design is updated to incorporate any changes and to rectify any failures, and the process of Validation, and Performance and Durability tests are repeated until an optimum level of performance and reliability is reached.
As iterative prototyping is one of the most under-appreciated phases of the development journey, we’ve created an extension to this guide focussed exclusively on prototyping.
19. User Demonstration
Having tested your prototypes in simulated environments, it is imperative to get them into the hands of the people who represent the target market. Ergonomics, ease-of-use, and safety assessments should be carried out to ensure the product will feel, sound, and function at the required standard. As well as generating feedback on the user-experience of core functionality, the ways customers intuitively interact and engage with your product can be especially revealing, and may highlight unexpected applications of your product which might be explored in another prototype iteration.
2o. Certification
Once the Experimental and Demonstration Prototypes have proven to be robust in simulated and real-world environments, critical regulatory and requirement testing is conducted to confirm that minimum standards for durability, functional performance, and safety have been met. Depending on the product and industry, these tests can be mandatory. Certification many include CE testing, UN testing, destructive tests, noise, or electrical isolation tests.
21. Final Design - Full Prototype & Production
The Final Design phase marks the conclusion of a string of iterations, and works to ensure that all proposed design solutions are optimised for cost and time reduction at manufacture. Any unchecked strategic or design-centred mistakes here are liable to reveal themselves in exponentially large costs downstream. Having established which are the most productive and commercially viable ideas to take forward into production, much of the work undertaken here is focussed on cost-downs, further increasing efficiency, and reducing waste. All quality control process must be prepared at this point.
22. Funding (Round Four)
To take your venture into the revenue-generating phase, sufficient investment must now be in place to finance the purchase of materials, manufacturing tools, and inspection equipment, and to implement assembly lines. By this point you will be equipped with both a matured product and a detailed understanding of market potential and prospective customer perception, opening yet another set of opportunities to secure investment.
Phase Five: Production & Commercialisation
23. Supply Chain
Products require a range of suppliers with varying capabilities. In this phase you’ll need to establish your Supply Chains. This involves supplier sourcing, procurement management, and the setup of part tracking databases, warehousing, and a quality inspection facility. Hooper Quinn offers a cost-effective solution for your Supply Chain. We can handle DFM reviews, price negotiations, quality control, out-of-spec part rejection, serial number tracking system (SNTS) databases, and delivery schedules.
24. Production Quality Control
While some bought-in-parts may rely on external quality inspection, an in-house Quality Assessment System and Inspection Facility is implemented to maintain production standards. Quality Engineers will determine the depth of assessment required for each part of the product—from measuring critical drawing dimensions to stress testing—and establish sign-off criteria for sub-assembly testing and Final Inspection. It is likely that you’ll need to have trained staff to carry out these functions, including Test Technicians, Supplier Quality Assessors, and Goods-In Inspectors.
25. Tooling Trials
For the first time, products are made entirely by the Mass-Production Tooling. A final assessment is required to prove zero issues in these revised manufacturing and mass-production processes, and all associated quality control processes will have been proven by independent trials prior to this point. This can be a tense process for your business and suppliers, as any problems uncovered during the Tooling Trials will have a significant impact on the timing of customer deliveries. As such, engineering teams will often provide 24hr support to resolve any last-minute issues.
26. First Production Units
The very first units that are produced when the production line gets a “green light” will often go directly to directors and specially selected customers, such as crowd funders. All functions of the business are fully established and proven: your product has entered full production and your units are handed over to distributors or shipped directly to the customer.
Start Your Journey
If you would like Hooper Quinn to help your business with any of the phases in this guide, take a look at our Services Directory, or get in touch via our contact form.