product development
The design of a product is not a matter of taste. Therefore we base our product development projects on a solid design strategy.
what is product development
Product development is the process of creating new products that solve problems, improve functionality, and enhance the user experience. When we talk about product development, we mean tangible products, like a medical device, a ski boot, a wheelchair or a mountain bike.
It involves a combination of creativity, technical knowledge, and understanding of user needs. The goal of product development is to create products that are not only aesthetically pleasing but also practical and user-friendly.
the process
Every new product starts with an idea. We can help you with our design process from the initial contact up to production of your new product.
It is important for us to get a clear idea of your plans. Not only about the product itself, but also your plans for production, logistics and marketing. Once we have that, we can make you an offer.
When the offer is signed we start the project with a kick-off meeting and start the process.
sketching
By exploring different possibilities, product development encourages innovation. Our designers experiment with new ideas and technologies to create new products. And the visual concepts are a powerful way to communicate ideas. They help ensure everyone involved in the project has a clear understanding of the product vision.
And finally, the early designs help us to assess the feasibility of a product. This includes considering factors like cost, materials, and manufacturing processes.
This stage is mainly about creating sketches of innovative functional solutions, form exploration, creating ergonomic solutions, integration of components, connections and parts, quickly testing with rough mockups.
more details
The next big milestone is building a realistic prototype. In order to get there, we need to go through an engineering process to translate the sketches into realistic 3D CAD models.
Manufacturing firms are unable to make parts based on sketches. Their machines need sophisticated 3D CAD models to manufacture prototyping parts.
Although the sketches of the concept have already a certain level of details, many technical solutions still need to be found, build and verified. A 3D model is the perfect tool to build, improve and test the product virtually.
modeling
The start of 3D modeling is building parts and assemblies, which will together form the product. Some parts may have very complex outer surfaces, which requires time to model and optimize in order to get the desired shape. In many cases the 3D CAD model will consist of dozens up to hundreds of parts and many assemblies.
All connections between the parts and standard components have to be included in the model, together with information about wall thickness, bosses or inserts for screws, click fingers, draft angles for molding, tolerances, material properties and many things more.
3d printing
During the creation of the 3D CAD models we continuously need to find solutions and test them. We can do many things in the virtual model itself, like checking interference with cut sections, let parts move and rotate towards each other to check kinematics.
Still, to have a part in your hand is superior. Therefore we make many intermediate 3D prints of the parts we create, to check, see in real and get inspiration for even better solutions that are easier, stronger or cheaper later in manufacturing.
materials
During the product engineering we have to select materials for each part. We have experience in using for instance bio-compatible materials like LSR (liquid silicon rubber), medical grade engineering plastics and medical metals.
In sports applications we use high performance engineering plastics, like glass filled Nylons, PEEK or simpler ABS / PC types of plastics, as well as high performance TPE and TPU’s.
Apart from plastics we have experience with metals, like copper, magnesium, stainless steel and lightweight aerospace aluminium like AL7068-T6511.
For sports applications we gained experience in both natural as well as synthetic leathers and fabrics, both for shoes and bags and carbon for bike frame manufacturing.
integration
Some products have integrated electronics, motors or electric drives. That means we need to test these parts, select the best ones for the application and build these into the 3D CAD model.
In the past we had our in-house pcb development which is still useful today in terms of understanding the integration of pcb’s in products, the limitations and possibilities.
We also write mostly a first level of software ourselves to be able to quickly test motors and controllers. Obviously, when a product prototype is build, industry grade software needs to be written.
simulations
We perform FEM simulations on parts that bear heavy dynamic or static loads or which are crucial for the safety of a product.
In many cases we perform 3D CAD simulations and tests with prototypes to achieve maximum performance at minimum weight. During bicycle design, we use kinematics simulation software to develop the solutions for rear suspension and geometry.
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