In today’s competitive market, engineering new product development is important for all types of businesses. When organizations invest in product development, they can present innovative solutions and set themselves apart from the rest. Furthermore, organizations can stay ahead of customers’ preferences with improvements. Creativity and expertise will help businesses unleash new opportunities for growth and move along the road to success.
Key Takeaways
In this article, you will know about engineering product development and its various phases.
What is Engineering Product Development?
Whenever companies develop products through certain processes, mechanical engineers are busy designing and manufacturing the product. These steps, performed by engineers, come under ‘engineering product development’. While engineers play a vital role in ensuring smooth operations of the product, they also spend time optimizing functionalities.
Generally, a product development engineer plays a role in many different ways. These are as follows:
- Presenting design concepts for the product
- Seeking and analyzing the required materials
- Developing prototypes for testing and feedback
- Going through feedback to enhance the product and rolling it out into a finished piece
3 Phases of Engineering Product Development Process
There are many phases that you will come across in the engineering product development process. These primarily include ‘design’, ‘product engineering’, and ‘development’. Now, let’s check out the three phases in detail.
Design
During the design phase, engineers will be involved in market research, presenting design concepts, and evaluating regulatory compliance.
Market Research
While engineers are actively involved in market research and competitive analysis, they gather data to come up with product ideas and find market gaps. Additionally, they also collect feedback that’s helpful to optimize the product. Here are some ways that can help them move ahead.
- Carrying out brainstorming sessions with other professionals
- Conducting surveys to improve customer satisfaction
- Analyzing a range of products presented by competitors
- Seeking trends related to consumers and the market
Soon after conducting research, engineers proceed with the next stage to transform product ideas and present them visually.
Design Concepts Creation
After perceiving what the final product should look like and how it should operate, product development engineers collaborate with designers to create design concepts. By bearing the feedback in mind, these professionals present many design concepts in various ways. These techniques include:
- 3D models
- Concept sketches
- Product demonstrations
A bit later, the engineers present visual representations to business leaders for their inputs and how the product can be improved. As the inputs are incorporated into the visual design, engineers make sure that the product design is as per the business goals.
Regulatory Compliance Assessment
At the end of the design phase, professionals ensure that the product meets regulatory requirements. Engineers also make sure that the product doesn’t have a negative impact on the environment as soon as it’s manufactured and launched on the market. However, ensuring product compliance may sound challenging because engineers have to deal with markets that have different standards. There are numerous risks involved in regulatory compliance. These are:
- Hefty Fines
- Sealed Production
- Point of sale (POS) restrictions
Nevertheless, engineers conduct product compliance at an early stage to reduce the burden of various costs at the end of product development.
Product Engineering
Soon after the design phase, many professionals are involved in product engineering. This phase includes design optimization, gathering suitable materials, and reverse engineering.
Design Optimisation
In this phase, experienced engineers are actively involved in introducing new and innovative ways to optimize product design. With a user-centric approach, the team works towards designing for manufacturability (DFM). Engineers are also busy using computer-aided design (CAD) to streamline the design process and seek areas for optimization. Scalability and manufacturing constraints are also considered to make sure that the product can be manufactured on a large scale cost-effectively while maintaining quality consistently.
Materials Gathering
After the phase of cost optimization, engineers source materials with the budget taken into consideration. However, the professionals rely on their experience and knowledge when they find suitable materials for the product. Professionals also make sure that the materials comply with certain standards and regulations. In addition, they also prioritize sustainability and consider environmentally friendly practices when connecting with suppliers.
Mechanical & Reverse Engineering
Now, numerous mechanical engineers apply their skills to integrate design and use their business knowledge in the product development process. In those instances, professionals implement reverse engineering and work backwards to check out how the product can be a perfect solution for customers’ problems. But, before proceeding further, mechanical engineers have to maintain quality control protocols to ensure that they meet certain standards along with certifications.
Development
This phase follows the product engineering phase and involves presenting a Proof of Concept, developing a prototype, and going through end-user feedback.
Proof of Concept Preparation
When you need to validate a product idea before commencing the actual development process, you have to present a Proof of Concept (PoC). This step usually refers to the creation of a simple prototype to give an idea of how the finished product will function and look after its launch. It’s often understood that a PoC must appear perfect from all angles. But when you’re portraying the product through a PoC, you should create it accurately in the form of a 3D model. Apart from everything else, you can use the 3D model when you’re running ads and creating awareness regarding the product.
Prototype creation
Representing the product physically is the next stage in the product engineering phase. As engineers refer to Computer Aided Design (CAD) data, they can easily create a prototype to replicate the look of the final product. After creating the prototype, engineers evaluate the customers’ responses and check whether there are any problems. With a list of issues or problems, engineers later improve the features prior to the official launch.
End-User Feedback
By gathering end-user feedback, product engineers can later enhance the product and look for technical issues and challenges. After understanding the challenges and issues, they may either optimize the product design or incorporate new features into the design. Ultimately, the end product is led to the manufacturing state, where it’s produced as per market demand.
Partner with Technosoft Engineering
When you approach Technosoft Engineering and discuss your requirements for a new product, you will gain the most from an innovative approach in every stage of product development. Throughout the NPD cycle, we never fail to follow best practices and produce supreme-quality products that will become popular in the market.
Closing Thoughts
Finally, the product development process is soon going to evolve with market dynamics and technological advancements. Teams will be able to iterate quickly and deliver value with the adoption of agile practices. Engineers will also not focus on user experience and strive to develop a human-centric design with a thorough understanding of the user’s preferences. A great emphasis will also be laid on regulatory compliance and risk management in the realm of product development. Hence, it’s always better to connect with a product development team when a product idea is still present in your mind.